Local privilege escalation via stale per-network operations
Published May 1, 2025 · Updated Aug 5, 2026
Use-after-free in Linux kernel SMC initialization allows local users to crash the host or escalate to kernel privileges. On an smc_init() failure path, registration errors leave smc_net_ops or smc_net_stat_ops linked after the module storage is released, so later per-network registration dereferences stale callbacks. An unprivileged local user can request SMC module autoload and create network namespaces; successful triggering causes a kernel page fault or enables kernel control-flow hijacking.
Summary
What happened
Use-after-free in Linux kernel SMC initialization allows local users to crash the host or escalate to kernel privileges. On an smc_init() failure path, registration errors leave smc_net_ops or smc_net_stat_ops linked after the module storage is released, so later per-network registration dereferences stale callbacks. An unprivileged local user can request SMC module autoload and create network namespaces; successful triggering causes a kernel page fault or enables kernel control-flow hijacking.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-49905
- Published
- May 1, 2025
- Updated
- Aug 5, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- CWE-401, T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 1, 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=194730a9beb52d2b030ea45e12d94868d4a0e6fd <61defd6450a9ef4a1487090449999b0fd83518ef
- Affected versionversion=194730a9beb52d2b030ea45e12d94868d4a0e6fd <62ff373da2534534c55debe6c724c7fe14adb97f
- Affected versionversion=194730a9beb52d2b030ea45e12d94868d4a0e6fd <c97daf836f7caf81d3144b8cd2b2a51f9bc3bd09
- Affected versionversion=5.14
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.
Weakness, pattern, technique
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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