CVE-2022-50078 | tracing/eprobes: Do not allow eprobes to use $stack, or % for regs

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tracing/eprobes: Do not allow eprobes to use $stack, or % for regs While playing with event probes (eprobes), I tried to see what would happen if I attempted to retrieve the instruction pointer (%rip) knowing that event probes do not use pt_regs. The result was: BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000024 #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page PGD 0 P4D 0 Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP PTI CPU: 1 PID: 1847 Comm: trace-cmd Not tainted 5.19.0-rc5-test+ #309 Hardware name: Hewlett-Packard HP Compaq Pro 6300 SFF/339A, BIOS K01 v03.03 07/14/2016 RIP: 0010:get_event_field.isra.0+0x0/0x50 Code: ff 48 c7 c7 c0 8f 74 a1 e8 3d 8b f5 ff e8 88 09 f6 ff 4c 89 e7 e8 50 6a 13 00 48 89 ef 5b 5d 41 5c 41 5d e9 42 6a 13 00 66 90 <48> 63 47 24 8b 57 2c 48 01 c6 8b 47 28 83 f8 02 74 0e 83 f8 04 74 RSP: 0018:ffff916c394bbaf0 EFLAGS: 00010086 RAX: ffff916c854041d8 RBX: ffff916c8d9fbf50 RCX: ffff916c255d2000 RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: ffff916c255d2008 RDI: 0000000000000000 RBP: 0000000000000000 R08: ffff916c3a2a0c08 R09: ffff916c394bbda8 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffff916c854041d8 R13: ffff916c854041b0 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: 0000000000000000 FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff916c9ea40000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 0000000000000024 CR3: 000000011b60a002 CR4: 00000000001706e0 Call Trace: <TASK> get_eprobe_size+0xb4/0x640 ? __mod_node_page_state+0x72/0xc0 __eprobe_trace_func+0x59/0x1a0 ? __mod_lruvec_page_state+0xaa/0x1b0 ? page_remove_file_rmap+0x14/0x230 ? page_remove_rmap+0xda/0x170 event_triggers_call+0x52/0xe0 trace_event_buffer_commit+0x18f/0x240 trace_event_raw_event_sched_wakeup_template+0x7a/0xb0 try_to_wake_up+0x260/0x4c0 __wake_up_common+0x80/0x180 __wake_up_common_lock+0x7c/0xc0 do_notify_parent+0x1c9/0x2a0 exit_notify+0x1a9/0x220 do_exit+0x2ba/0x450 do_group_exit+0x2d/0x90 __x64_sys_exit_group+0x14/0x20 do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x90 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x46/0xb0 Obviously this is not the desired result. Move the testing for TPARG_FL_TPOINT which is only used for event probes to the top of the "$" variable check, as all the other variables are not used for event probes. Also add a check in the register parsing "%" to fail if an event probe is used.

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

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2022-50078 is rated Low Risk (31.9/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.10%). 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-2022-50078

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 2026-04-14 0.02% 0.10% +0.09%
2 2025-06-18 0.02%

Full EPSS history (2 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2022-50078

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-2022-50078

OS Trackers for CVE-2022-50078

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2022-50078 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-2022-50078
redhat low https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-50078
suse medium CVE-2022-50078 severity moderate: SUSE including 26 source package names (cluster-md-kmp-default, dlm-kmp-default, …), 266 product×package rows across 52 product lines (SLES-LTSS-TERADATA 15 SP2, SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7, … (52 product lines)): Known Not Affected 266. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-50078/
ubuntu medium CVE-2022-50078 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-2022-50078

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2022-50078

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel >= 5.15, < 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:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.0 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.0:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2022-50078

cvelogic Threat Intelligence