CVE-2022-50453: gpiolib: cdev: fix NULL-pointer dereferences

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2025-10-01 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-476

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: gpiolib: cdev: fix NULL-pointer dereferences There are several places where we can crash the kernel by requesting lines, unbinding the GPIO device, then calling any of the system calls relevant to the GPIO character device's annonymous file descriptors: ioctl(), read(), poll(). While I observed it with the GPIO simulator, it will also happen for any of the GPIO devices that can be hot-unplugged - for instance any HID GPIO expander (e.g. CP2112). This affects both v1 and v2 uAPI. This fixes it partially by checking if gdev->chip is not NULL but it doesn't entirely remedy the situation as we still have a race condition in which another thread can remove the device after the check.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 4.8 before 5.10.163; from 5.11 before 5.15.86; from 5.16 before 6.0.16; from 6.1 before 6.1.2 — fixed in 5.10.163, 5.15.86, 6.0.16, 6.1.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.10.163, 5.15.86, 6.0.16, 6.1.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

Get alerted when CVE-2022-50453 or the next vulnerability affects your stack