CVE-2022-50435 [Medium] | Security Vulnerability in Linux Kernel

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: avoid crash when inline data creation follows DIO write When inode is created and written to using direct IO, there is nothing to clear the EXT4_STATE_MAY_INLINE_DATA flag. Thus when inode gets truncated later to say 1 byte and written using normal write, we will try to store the data as inline data. This confuses the code later because the inode now has both normal block and inline data allocated and the confusion manifests for example as: kernel BUG at fs/ext4/inode.c:2721! invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN CPU: 0 PID: 359 Comm: repro Not tainted 5.19.0-rc8-00001-g31ba1e3b8305-dirty #15 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.0-1.fc36 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:ext4_writepages+0x363d/0x3660 RSP: 0018:ffffc90000ccf260 EFLAGS: 00010293 RAX: ffffffff81e1abcd RBX: 0000008000000000 RCX: ffff88810842a180 RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000008000000000 RDI: 0000000000000000 RBP: ffffc90000ccf650 R08: ffffffff81e17d58 R09: ffffed10222c680b R10: dfffe910222c680c R11: 1ffff110222c680a R12: ffff888111634128 R13: ffffc90000ccf880 R14: 0000008410000000 R15: 0000000000000001 FS: 00007f72635d2640(0000) GS:ffff88811b000000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 0000565243379180 CR3: 000000010aa74000 CR4: 0000000000150eb0 Call Trace: <TASK> do_writepages+0x397/0x640 filemap_fdatawrite_wbc+0x151/0x1b0 file_write_and_wait_range+0x1c9/0x2b0 ext4_sync_file+0x19e/0xa00 vfs_fsync_range+0x17b/0x190 ext4_buffered_write_iter+0x488/0x530 ext4_file_write_iter+0x449/0x1b90 vfs_write+0xbcd/0xf40 ksys_write+0x198/0x2c0 __x64_sys_write+0x7b/0x90 do_syscall_64+0x3d/0x90 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd </TASK> Fix the problem by clearing EXT4_STATE_MAY_INLINE_DATA when we are doing direct IO write to a file.

#	Date	Old EPSS score	New EPSS score	Delta (New - Old)
1	2025-10-01	—	0.03%	—

Date

Old EPSS score

New EPSS score

Delta (New - Old)

2025-10-01

—

0.03%

—

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]

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]

OS Trackers for CVE-2022-50435

vendor	priority	summary	link
`debian`	not yet assigned	CVE-2022-50435 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-2022-50435
`redhat`	medium	—	https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-50435
`suse`	medium	—	https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-50435/
`ubuntu`	medium	CVE-2022-50435 medium priority: Ubuntu including 158 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1414 status rows across 9 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1017, ignored 162, released 132, not-affected 82, needed 20, needs-triage 1.	https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2022-50435

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2022-50435

Vendor	Product	Version	Raw CPE
linux	linux_kernel	>= 5.5, < 5.10.150	cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel::::::::
linux	linux_kernel	>= 5.11, < 5.15.75	cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel::::::::
linux	linux_kernel	>= 5.16, < 5.19.17	cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel::::::::
linux	linux_kernel	>= 6.0, < 6.0.3	cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel::::::::

References for CVE-2022-50435

URL	Tags
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4bb26f2885ac6930984ee451b952c5a6042f2c0e	Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/771f15782d95760cde352c8d4bfd6f2c70719568	Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/89db2b50469bdbccb06ab072096d9d403124abac	Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d8e4af8314df54d94cf2a541cf9c8626afe81d41	Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fb98cb61efff3b2a1964939465ccaaf906af1d4f	Patch

URL

CVE-2022-50435 | ext4: avoid crash when inline data creation follows DIO write

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2022-50435

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2022-50435

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2022-50435

OS Trackers for CVE-2022-50435

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2022-50435

References for CVE-2022-50435