Conditional kernel panic via spurious ALSA warning
Published May 1, 2025 · Updated May 11, 2026
Improper exception handling in the Linux ALSA USB-audio driver allows local users to trigger a kernel warning via malformed MIDI descriptors. snd_usbmidi_output_open() passes a valid NULL-port condition caused by skipped allocation to snd_BUG_ON(), which invokes the WARN path instead of returning the error normally. Triggering requires a malformed USB MIDI endpoint and opening its output; the warning panics the host only when panic_on_warn is enabled.
Summary
What happened
Improper exception handling in the Linux ALSA USB-audio driver allows local users to trigger a kernel warning via malformed MIDI descriptors. snd_usbmidi_output_open() passes a valid NULL-port condition caused by skipped allocation to snd_BUG_ON(), which invokes the WARN path instead of returning the error normally. Triggering requires a malformed USB MIDI endpoint and opening its output; the warning panics the host only when panic_on_warn is enabled.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-49772
- Published
- May 1, 2025
- Updated
- May 11, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- T1529
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 1, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 11, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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- Affected versionversion=4.15
- Affected versionversion=738d9edcfd44f154924692e54109fb439fcf8bdd <00f5f1bbf815a39e9eecb468d12ca55d3360eb10
- Affected versionversion=738d9edcfd44f154924692e54109fb439fcf8bdd <02b94885b2fdf1808b1874e009bfb90753f8f4db
- Affected versionversion=738d9edcfd44f154924692e54109fb439fcf8bdd <a80369c8ca50bc885d14386087a834659ec54a54
- Affected versionversion=738d9edcfd44f154924692e54109fb439fcf8bdd <ad72c3c3f6eb81d2cb189ec71e888316adada5df
- Affected versionversion=738d9edcfd44f154924692e54109fb439fcf8bdd <c43991065f36f7628cd124e037b8750c4617a7a7
- Affected versionversion=738d9edcfd44f154924692e54109fb439fcf8bdd <e7dc436aea80308a9268e6d2d85f910ff107de9b
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What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
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