CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2022-49884 — Linux Linux Kernel security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 4.7

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: Initialize gfn_to_pfn_cache locks in dedicated helper Move the gfn_to_pfn_cache lock initialization to another helper and call the new helper during VM/vCPU creation. There are race conditions possible due to kvm_gfn_to_pfn_cache_init()'s ability to re-initialize the cache's locks. For example: a race between ioctl(KVM_XEN_HVM_EVTCHN_SEND) and kvm_gfn_to_pfn_cache_init() leads to a corrupted shinfo gpc lock. (thread 1) | (thread 2) | kvm_xen_set_evtchn_fast | read_lock_irqsave(&gpc->lock, ...) | | kvm_gfn_to_pfn_cache_init | rwlock_init(&gpc->lock) read_unlock_irqrestore(&gpc->lock, ...) | Rename "cache_init" and "cache_destroy" to activate+deactivate to avoid implying that the cache really is destroyed/freed. Note, there more races in the newly named kvm_gpc_activate() that will be addressed separately. [sean: call out that this is a bug fix]

Severity
Medium
CVSS
4.7 (3.1)
Published
2025-05-01
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
linux/kernel
Weaknesses
CWE-362

Affected products

  • linux / linux_kernel
  • linux / linux_kernel / 6.1

Showing 2 representative product identities from 4 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Race condition, TOCTOU, and lifecycle synchronization

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Check exposure

  • Map concurrent actors, shared state, lock boundaries, signals, callbacks, retries, and check-then-use sequences in the affected path.
  • Determine whether untrusted users can influence timing, object names, filesystem state, or repeated state transitions.
  • Identify clustered and multi-process behavior that repository-local tests may not represent.

Remediate safely

  • Make the sensitive state transition atomic or protect it with a consistently ordered synchronization primitive.
  • Perform authorization and invariant checks on the same authoritative object and transaction used for the operation.
  • Use unique private resources, safe ownership transfer, and idempotent operations; add deterministic concurrency regression tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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