Local privilege escalation via dirty COW bypass
Published Jun 18, 2025 · Updated Aug 5, 2026
Race condition in mm/gup in Linux 5.16 through 5.19.5 allows local users to escalate privileges by modifying read-only shmem pages. FOLL_FORCE treats a dirty page-table entry installed by UFFDIO_CONTINUE as proof that copy-on-write completed, so /proc/self/mem writes reach protected tmpfs or shmem content. Exploitation requires low-privileged local code, a controllable race, and an x86_64 or arm64 kernel with minor-fault userfaultfd support; it bypasses file permissions and memfd write seals.
Summary
What happened
Race condition in mm/gup in Linux 5.16 through 5.19.5 allows local users to escalate privileges by modifying read-only shmem pages. FOLL_FORCE treats a dirty page-table entry installed by UFFDIO_CONTINUE as proof that copy-on-write completed, so /proc/self/mem writes reach protected tmpfs or shmem content. Exploitation requires low-privileged local code, a controllable race, and an x86_64 or arm64 kernel with minor-fault userfaultfd support; it bypasses file permissions and memfd write seals.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-50014
- Published
- Jun 18, 2025
- Updated
- Aug 5, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- CWE-362, T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jun 18, 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=5.16
- Affected versionversion=9ae0f87d009ca6c4aab2882641ddfc319727e3db <5535be3099717646781ce1540cf725965d680e7b
- Affected versionversion=9ae0f87d009ca6c4aab2882641ddfc319727e3db <9def52eb10baab3b700858003d462fcf17d62873
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.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- CVE-2022-2590 Dirty COW restricted to shmem PoCproof of concept · demonstrated
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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