CVE-2022-50069 | BPF: Fix potential bad pointer dereference in bpf_sys_bpf()

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: BPF: Fix potential bad pointer dereference in bpf_sys_bpf() The bpf_sys_bpf() helper function allows an eBPF program to load another eBPF program from within the kernel. In this case the argument union bpf_attr pointer (as well as the insns and license pointers inside) is a kernel address instead of a userspace address (which is the case of a usual bpf() syscall). To make the memory copying process in the syscall work in both cases, bpfptr_t was introduced to wrap around the pointer and distinguish its origin. Specifically, when copying memory contents from a bpfptr_t, a copy_from_user() is performed in case of a userspace address and a memcpy() is performed for a kernel address. This can lead to problems because the in-kernel pointer is never checked for validity. The problem happens when an eBPF syscall program tries to call bpf_sys_bpf() to load a program but provides a bad insns pointer -- say 0xdeadbeef -- in the bpf_attr union. The helper calls __sys_bpf() which would then call bpf_prog_load() to load the program. bpf_prog_load() is responsible for copying the eBPF instructions to the newly allocated memory for the program; it creates a kernel bpfptr_t for insns and invokes copy_from_bpfptr(). Internally, all bpfptr_t operations are backed by the corresponding sockptr_t operations, which performs direct memcpy() on kernel pointers for copy_from/strncpy_from operations. Therefore, the code is always happy to dereference the bad pointer to trigger a un-handle-able page fault and in turn an oops. However, this is not supposed to happen because at that point the eBPF program is already verified and should not cause a memory error. Sample KASAN trace: [ 25.685056][ T228] ================================================================== [ 25.685680][ T228] BUG: KASAN: user-memory-access in copy_from_bpfptr+0x21/0x30 [ 25.686210][ T228] Read of size 80 at addr 00000000deadbeef by task poc/228 [ 25.686732][ T228] [ 25.686893][ T228] CPU: 3 PID: 228 Comm: poc Not tainted 5.19.0-rc7 #7 [ 25.687375][ T228] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS d55cb5a 04/01/2014 [ 25.687991][ T228] Call Trace: [ 25.688223][ T228] <TASK> [ 25.688429][ T228] dump_stack_lvl+0x73/0x9e [ 25.688747][ T228] print_report+0xea/0x200 [ 25.689061][ T228] ? copy_from_bpfptr+0x21/0x30 [ 25.689401][ T228] ? _printk+0x54/0x6e [ 25.689693][ T228] ? _raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0x70/0xd0 [ 25.690071][ T228] ? copy_from_bpfptr+0x21/0x30 [ 25.690412][ T228] kasan_report+0xb5/0xe0 [ 25.690716][ T228] ? copy_from_bpfptr+0x21/0x30 [ 25.691059][ T228] kasan_check_range+0x2bd/0x2e0 [ 25.691405][ T228] ? copy_from_bpfptr+0x21/0x30 [ 25.691734][ T228] memcpy+0x25/0x60 [ 25.692000][ T228] copy_from_bpfptr+0x21/0x30 [ 25.692328][ T228] bpf_prog_load+0x604/0x9e0 [ 25.692653][ T228] ? cap_capable+0xb4/0xe0 [ 25.692956][ T228] ? security_capable+0x4f/0x70 [ 25.693324][ T228] __sys_bpf+0x3af/0x580 [ 25.693635][ T228] bpf_sys_bpf+0x45/0x240 [ 25.693937][ T228] bpf_prog_f0ec79a5a3caca46_bpf_func1+0xa2/0xbd [ 25.694394][ T228] bpf_prog_run_pin_on_cpu+0x2f/0xb0 [ 25.694756][ T228] bpf_prog_test_run_syscall+0x146/0x1c0 [ 25.695144][ T228] bpf_prog_test_run+0x172/0x190 [ 25.695487][ T228] __sys_bpf+0x2c5/0x580 [ 25.695776][ T228] __x64_sys_bpf+0x3a/0x50 [ 25.696084][ T228] do_syscall_64+0x60/0x90 [ 25.696393][ T228] ? fpregs_assert_state_consistent+0x50/0x60 [ 25.696815][ T228] ? exit_to_user_mode_prepare+0x36/0xa0 [ 25.697202][ T228] ? syscall_exit_to_user_mode+0x20/0x40 [ 25.697586][ T228] ? do_syscall_64+0x6e/0x90 [ 25.697899][ T228] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd [ 25.698312][ T228] RIP: 0033:0x7f6d543fb759 [ 25.698624][ T228] Code: 08 5b 89 e8 5d c3 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 90 48 89 f8 48 89 f7 48 89 d6 48 89 ca 4d ---truncated---

Published: 2025-06-18 Last update: 2025-11-17 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2022-50069 is rated Low Risk (22.9/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.02%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2022-50069

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2025-06-18 0.02%

Full EPSS history (1 record total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2022-50069

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
1.8 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2022-50069

OS Trackers for CVE-2022-50069

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2022-50069 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (linux), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2022-50069
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-50069
suse medium CVE-2022-50069 severity moderate: SUSE including 73 source package names (bpftool-4.18.0-425.3.1.el8, bpftool-7.0.0-284.11.1.el9_2, …), 266 product×package rows across 44 product lines (SLES-LTSS-TERADATA 15 SP2, SUSE Liberty Linux 8, … (44 product lines)): Known Not Affected 219, Fixed 47. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-50069/
ubuntu medium CVE-2022-50069 medium priority: Ubuntu including 158 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1551 status rows across 10 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1145, ignored 147, not-affected 144, released 114, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2022-50069

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2022-50069

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel >= 5.14, < 5.15.63 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.16, < 5.19.4 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2022-50069

cvelogic Threat Intelligence