Local privilege escalation via stale BFQ queue merge
Published Feb 26, 2025 · Updated Aug 5, 2026
Use-after-free in the BFQ I/O scheduler in Linux allows local users to crash the kernel or escalate privileges through local I/O. bfq_setup_merge merges queues from a stale stable_merge_bfqq decision without rechecking their parents after cgroup reparenting, allowing an offline parent object to be freed before later scheduler use. Reachability requires a BFQ-managed block device and local access to submit I/O and manipulate a delegated cgroup hierarchy; exploitation can panic the kernel or gain kernel-level control.
Summary
What happened
Use-after-free in the BFQ I/O scheduler in Linux allows local users to crash the kernel or escalate privileges through local I/O. bfq_setup_merge merges queues from a stale stable_merge_bfqq decision without rechecking their parents after cgroup reparenting, allowing an offline parent object to be freed before later scheduler use. Reachability requires a BFQ-managed block device and local access to submit I/O and manipulate a delegated cgroup hierarchy; exploitation can panic the kernel or gain kernel-level control.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-49412
- Published
- Feb 26, 2025
- Updated
- Aug 5, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- CWE-416, T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Feb 26, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 5, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=430a67f9d6169a7b3e328bceb2ef9542e4153c7c <5ee21edaed09e6b25f2c007b3f326752bc89bacf
- Affected versionversion=430a67f9d6169a7b3e328bceb2ef9542e4153c7c <8abc8763b11c35e03cc91d59fd0cd28d39f88ca9
- Affected versionversion=430a67f9d6169a7b3e328bceb2ef9542e4153c7c <a16c65cca7d2c7ff965fdd3adc8df2156529caf1
- Affected versionversion=430a67f9d6169a7b3e328bceb2ef9542e4153c7c <c1cee4ab36acef271be9101590756ed0c0c374d9
- Affected versionversion=5.13
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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