CVE-2022-50231 | crypto: arm64/poly1305 - fix a read out-of-bound

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: crypto: arm64/poly1305 - fix a read out-of-bound A kasan error was reported during fuzzing: BUG: KASAN: slab-out-of-bounds in neon_poly1305_blocks.constprop.0+0x1b4/0x250 [poly1305_neon] Read of size 4 at addr ffff0010e293f010 by task syz-executor.5/1646715 CPU: 4 PID: 1646715 Comm: syz-executor.5 Kdump: loaded Not tainted 5.10.0.aarch64 #1 Hardware name: Huawei TaiShan 2280 /BC11SPCD, BIOS 1.59 01/31/2019 Call trace: dump_backtrace+0x0/0x394 show_stack+0x34/0x4c arch/arm64/kernel/stacktrace.c:196 __dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:77 [inline] dump_stack+0x158/0x1e4 lib/dump_stack.c:118 print_address_description.constprop.0+0x68/0x204 mm/kasan/report.c:387 __kasan_report+0xe0/0x140 mm/kasan/report.c:547 kasan_report+0x44/0xe0 mm/kasan/report.c:564 check_memory_region_inline mm/kasan/generic.c:187 [inline] __asan_load4+0x94/0xd0 mm/kasan/generic.c:252 neon_poly1305_blocks.constprop.0+0x1b4/0x250 [poly1305_neon] neon_poly1305_do_update+0x6c/0x15c [poly1305_neon] neon_poly1305_update+0x9c/0x1c4 [poly1305_neon] crypto_shash_update crypto/shash.c:131 [inline] shash_finup_unaligned+0x84/0x15c crypto/shash.c:179 crypto_shash_finup+0x8c/0x140 crypto/shash.c:193 shash_digest_unaligned+0xb8/0xe4 crypto/shash.c:201 crypto_shash_digest+0xa4/0xfc crypto/shash.c:217 crypto_shash_tfm_digest+0xb4/0x150 crypto/shash.c:229 essiv_skcipher_setkey+0x164/0x200 [essiv] crypto_skcipher_setkey+0xb0/0x160 crypto/skcipher.c:612 skcipher_setkey+0x3c/0x50 crypto/algif_skcipher.c:305 alg_setkey+0x114/0x2a0 crypto/af_alg.c:220 alg_setsockopt+0x19c/0x210 crypto/af_alg.c:253 __sys_setsockopt+0x190/0x2e0 net/socket.c:2123 __do_sys_setsockopt net/socket.c:2134 [inline] __se_sys_setsockopt net/socket.c:2131 [inline] __arm64_sys_setsockopt+0x78/0x94 net/socket.c:2131 __invoke_syscall arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:36 [inline] invoke_syscall+0x64/0x100 arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:48 el0_svc_common.constprop.0+0x220/0x230 arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:155 do_el0_svc+0xb4/0xd4 arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:217 el0_svc+0x24/0x3c arch/arm64/kernel/entry-common.c:353 el0_sync_handler+0x160/0x164 arch/arm64/kernel/entry-common.c:369 el0_sync+0x160/0x180 arch/arm64/kernel/entry.S:683 This error can be reproduced by the following code compiled as ko on a system with kasan enabled: #include <linux/module.h> #include <linux/crypto.h> #include <crypto/hash.h> #include <crypto/poly1305.h> char test_data[] = "\x00\x01\x02\x03\x04\x05\x06\x07" "\x08\x09\x0a\x0b\x0c\x0d\x0e\x0f" "\x10\x11\x12\x13\x14\x15\x16\x17" "\x18\x19\x1a\x1b\x1c\x1d\x1e"; int init(void) { struct crypto_shash *tfm = NULL; char *data = NULL, *out = NULL; tfm = crypto_alloc_shash("poly1305", 0, 0); data = kmalloc(POLY1305_KEY_SIZE - 1, GFP_KERNEL); out = kmalloc(POLY1305_DIGEST_SIZE, GFP_KERNEL); memcpy(data, test_data, POLY1305_KEY_SIZE - 1); crypto_shash_tfm_digest(tfm, data, POLY1305_KEY_SIZE - 1, out); kfree(data); kfree(out); return 0; } void deinit(void) { } module_init(init) module_exit(deinit) MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); The root cause of the bug sits in neon_poly1305_blocks. The logic neon_poly1305_blocks() performed is that if it was called with both s[] and r[] uninitialized, it will first try to initialize them with the data from the first "block" that it believed to be 32 bytes in length. First 16 bytes are used as the key and the next 16 bytes for s[]. This would lead to the aforementioned read out-of-bound. However, after calling poly1305_init_arch(), only 16 bytes were deducted from the input and s[] is initialized yet again with the following 16 bytes. The second initialization of s[] is certainly redundent which indicates that the first initialization should be for r[] only. This patch fixes the issue by calling poly1305_init_arm64() instead o ---truncated---

Published: 2025-06-18 Last update: 2025-11-19 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2022-50231 is rated Low Risk (36.5/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.08%). 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-2022-50231

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% 0.08% +0.06%
2 2025-06-18 0.02%

Full EPSS history (2 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2022-50231

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.1 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/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:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big 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 5.2 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2022-50231

OS Trackers for CVE-2022-50231

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2022-50231 not yet assigned 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-2022-50231
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-50231
suse medium https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-50231/
ubuntu medium CVE-2022-50231 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-2022-50231

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2022-50231

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel >= 5.5, < 5.10.136 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.11, < 5.15.60 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.16, < 5.18.17 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.19, < 5.19.1 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2022-50231

cvelogic Threat Intelligence