Local privilege escalation via freed packet tracing
Published Feb 26, 2025 · Updated Aug 5, 2026
Use-after-free in Linux nf_tables allows local users to escalate privileges by tracing affected NF_STOLEN packet verdicts. When nftrace is enabled and a rule returns NF_STOLEN, nft_trace_notify reads skb fields and payload after the packet buffer may have been freed. Local users who can create a user and network namespace can obtain CAP_NET_ADMIN, then gain kernel memory read or write primitives or crash the host.
Summary
What happened
Use-after-free in Linux nf_tables allows local users to escalate privileges by tracing affected NF_STOLEN packet verdicts. When nftrace is enabled and a rule returns NF_STOLEN, nft_trace_notify reads skb fields and payload after the packet buffer may have been freed. Local users who can create a user and network namespace can obtain CAP_NET_ADMIN, then gain kernel memory read or write primitives or crash the host.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-49622
- 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=4.10
- Affected versionversion=5efa0fc6d7f7930b18801f07cefae8eeacd6ac02 <0016d5d46d7440729a3132f61a8da3bf7f84e2ba
- Affected versionversion=5efa0fc6d7f7930b18801f07cefae8eeacd6ac02 <e34b9ed96ce3b06c79bf884009b16961ca478f87
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
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.
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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