CVE-2022-49695
Published: 26 February 2025
Summary
CVE-2022-49695 is a high-severity Use After Free (CWE-416) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 5.6th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-2 (Flaw Remediation) and RA-5 (Vulnerability Monitoring and Scanning).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2022-49695 is a use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel's igb driver, specifically within the igb_clean_tx_ring function. It affects systems using Intel Gigabit Ethernet network interface controllers (NICs) when operating in XDP (eXpress Data Path) mode. The issue arises during the cleanup of the transmit ring while traffic is being redirected to the igb NIC and the device is closed, leading to a reference count saturation warning and potential memory corruption, as evidenced by the provided kernel crash trace from kernel version 5.18.3-apu2 on PC Engines APU2 hardware.
A local attacker with low privileges (PR:L) can exploit this vulnerability with low attack complexity and no user interaction required (AV:L/AC:L/UI:N). The attack involves redirecting traffic to the affected igb NIC—such as via XDP programs—and then closing the device while traffic flows, triggering the use-after-free in igb_clean_tx_ring during the igb_down and __igb_close paths. Successful exploitation could result in high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability (C:H/I:H/A:H), potentially allowing arbitrary code execution, data tampering, or system crashes, with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.8.
Mitigation requires updating to a patched Linux kernel version incorporating the fixes from the referenced stable commits, including 2af944210dc23d43d8208dafac4df7be7e3c168b, 3f6a57ee8544ec3982f8a3cbcbf4aea7d47eb9ec, 68a0ed06dcd5d3ea732d011c0b83d66e4791f521, and c12a2c9b1b460ed72e6b3c33aac1ef51b0329b66, which resolve the use-after-free bug in igb_clean_tx_ring for XDP mode.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2022-54540
Vulnerability details
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: igb: fix a use-after-free issue in igb_clean_tx_ring Fix the following use-after-free bug in igb_clean_tx_ring routine when the NIC is running in XDP mode. The issue can be triggered redirecting traffic…
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into the igb NIC and then closing the device while the traffic is flowing. [ 73.322719] CPU: 1 PID: 487 Comm: xdp_redirect Not tainted 5.18.3-apu2 #9 [ 73.330639] Hardware name: PC Engines APU2/APU2, BIOS 4.0.7 02/28/2017 [ 73.337434] RIP: 0010:refcount_warn_saturate+0xa7/0xf0 [ 73.362283] RSP: 0018:ffffc9000081f798 EFLAGS: 00010282 [ 73.367761] RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffffc90000420f80 RCX: 0000000000000000 [ 73.375200] RDX: ffff88811ad22d00 RSI: ffff88811ad171e0 RDI: ffff88811ad171e0 [ 73.382590] RBP: 0000000000000900 R08: ffffffff82298f28 R09: 0000000000000058 [ 73.390008] R10: 0000000000000219 R11: ffffffff82280f40 R12: 0000000000000090 [ 73.397356] R13: ffff888102343a40 R14: ffff88810359e0e4 R15: 0000000000000000 [ 73.404806] FS: 00007ff38d31d740(0000) GS:ffff88811ad00000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 73.413129] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 73.419096] CR2: 000055cff35f13f8 CR3: 0000000106391000 CR4: 00000000000406e0 [ 73.426565] Call Trace: [ 73.429087] <TASK> [ 73.431314] igb_clean_tx_ring+0x43/0x140 [igb] [ 73.436002] igb_down+0x1d7/0x220 [igb] [ 73.439974] __igb_close+0x3c/0x120 [igb] [ 73.444118] igb_xdp+0x10c/0x150 [igb] [ 73.447983] ? igb_pci_sriov_configure+0x70/0x70 [igb] [ 73.453362] dev_xdp_install+0xda/0x110 [ 73.457371] dev_xdp_attach+0x1da/0x550 [ 73.461369] do_setlink+0xfd0/0x10f0 [ 73.465166] ? __nla_validate_parse+0x89/0xc70 [ 73.469714] rtnl_setlink+0x11a/0x1e0 [ 73.473547] rtnetlink_rcv_msg+0x145/0x3d0 [ 73.477709] ? rtnl_calcit.isra.0+0x130/0x130 [ 73.482258] netlink_rcv_skb+0x8d/0x110 [ 73.486229] netlink_unicast+0x230/0x340 [ 73.490317] netlink_sendmsg+0x215/0x470 [ 73.494395] __sys_sendto+0x179/0x190 [ 73.498268] ? move_addr_to_user+0x37/0x70 [ 73.502547] ? __sys_getsockname+0x84/0xe0 [ 73.506853] ? netlink_setsockopt+0x1c1/0x4a0 [ 73.511349] ? __sys_setsockopt+0xc8/0x1d0 [ 73.515636] __x64_sys_sendto+0x20/0x30 [ 73.519603] do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x80 [ 73.523399] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae [ 73.528712] RIP: 0033:0x7ff38d41f20c [ 73.551866] RSP: 002b:00007fff3b945a68 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 000000000000002c [ 73.559640] RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 00007ff38d41f20c [ 73.567066] RDX: 0000000000000034 RSI: 00007fff3b945b30 RDI: 0000000000000003 [ 73.574457] RBP: 0000000000000003 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000 [ 73.581852] R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 00007fff3b945ab0 [ 73.589179] R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 0000000000000003 R15: 00007fff3b945b30 [ 73.596545] </TASK> [ 73.598842] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Local kernel UAF in igb driver directly enables exploitation for privilege escalation via arbitrary code execution in XDP mode.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Directly requires timely identification, reporting, and correction of flaws like the use-after-free in igb_clean_tx_ring by applying the specified Linux kernel patches.
Vulnerability scanning identifies systems running vulnerable kernel versions affected by CVE-2022-49695 in the igb driver.
Memory protection mechanisms such as KASLR and SMEP mitigate exploitation of the use-after-free vulnerability in the igb driver's XDP mode.