Privilege escalation via masked TLB register writes
Published Jan 27, 2023 · Updated Mar 28, 2025
Memory corruption in the Linux Kernel i915 driver 6.1-rc7 allows local users to crash the system or gain elevated privileges. On Gen12 video and compute engines, intel_gt_invalidate_tlbs writes unmasked bits to masked TLB_INV registers, so invalidation does not occur and stale mappings retain access to reassigned memory. Access to a Gen12 Intel GPU is required; without an IOMMU, stale translations expose other processes' physical pages, while an active IOMMU requires reusable mappings.
Summary
What happened
Memory corruption in the Linux Kernel i915 driver 6.1-rc7 allows local users to crash the system or gain elevated privileges. On Gen12 video and compute engines, intel_gt_invalidate_tlbs writes unmasked bits to masked TLB_INV registers, so invalidation does not occur and stale mappings retain access to reassigned memory. Access to a Gen12 Intel GPU is required; without an IOMMU, stale translations expose other processes' physical pages, while an active IOMMU requires reusable mappings.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-4139
- Published
- Jan 27, 2023
- Updated
- Mar 28, 2025
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux Kernel
- Classifications
- CWE-281, T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jan 27, 2023CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Mar 28, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=kernel 6.1-rc7
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What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
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Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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