CVE-2022-50630: mm: hugetlb: fix UAF in hugetlb_handle_userfault

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 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: 2025-12-08 · updated 2026-10-15

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm: hugetlb: fix UAF in hugetlb_handle_userfault The vma_lock and hugetlb_fault_mutex are dropped before handling userfault and reacquire them again after handle_userfault(), but reacquire the vma_lock could lead to UAF[1,2] due to the following race, hugetlb_fault hugetlb_no_page /*unlock vma_lock */ hugetlb_handle_userfault handle_userfault /* unlock mm->mmap_lock*/ vm_mmap_pgoff do_mmap mmap_region munmap_vma_range /* clean old vma */ /* lock vma_lock again <--- UAF */ /* unlock vma_lock */ Since the vma_lock will unlock immediately after hugetlb_handle_userfault(), let's drop the unneeded lock and unlock in hugetlb_handle_userfault() to fix the issue. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/000000000000d5e00a05e834962e@google.com/ [2] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20220921014457.1668-1-liuzixian4@huawei.com/

Affected products

Linux kernel: 4.11 — fixed in 6.1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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