CVE-2022-49916: rose: Fix NULL pointer dereference in rose_send_frame()

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2022-49916 is a medium (CVSS 5.5) NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.19% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 8% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 01-05-2025
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 23-05-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: rose: Fix NULL pointer dereference in rose_send_frame() The syzkaller reported an issue: KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000380-0x0000000000000387] CPU: 0 PID: 4069 Comm: kworker/0:15 Not tainted 6.0.0-syzkaller-02734-g0326074ff465 #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 09/22/2022 Workqueue: rcu_gp srcu_invoke_callbacks RIP: 0010:rose_send_frame+0x1dd/0x2f0 net/rose/rose_link.c:101 Call Trace: <IRQ> rose_transmit_clear_request+0x1d5/0x290 net/rose/rose_link.c:255 rose_rx_call_request+0x4c0/0x1bc0 net/rose/af_rose.c:1009 rose_loopback_timer+0x19e/0x590 net/rose/rose_loopback.c:111 call_timer_fn+0x1a0/0x6b0 kernel/time/timer.c:1474 expire_timers kernel/time/timer.c:1519 [inline] __run_timers.part.0+0x674/0xa80 kernel/time/timer.c:1790 __run_timers kernel/time/timer.c:1768 [inline] run_timer_softirq+0xb3/0x1d0 kernel/time/timer.c:1803 __do_softirq+0x1d0/0x9c8 kernel/softirq.c:571 [...] </IRQ> It triggers NULL pointer dereference when 'neigh->dev->dev_addr' is called in the rose_send_frame(). It's the first occurrence of the `neigh` is in rose_loopback_timer() as `rose_loopback_neigh', and the 'dev' in 'rose_loopback_neigh' is initialized sa nullptr. It had been fixed by commit 3b3fd068c56e3fbea30090859216a368398e39bf ("rose: Fix Null pointer dereference in rose_send_frame()") ever. But it's introduced by commit 3c53cd65dece47dd1f9d3a809f32e59d1d87b2b8 ("rose: check NULL rose_loopback_neigh->loopback") again. We fix it by add NULL check in rose_transmit_clear_request(). When the 'dev' in 'neigh' is NULL, we don't reply the request and just clear it. syzkaller don't provide repro, and I provide a syz repro like: r0 = syz_init_net_socket$bt_sco(0x1f, 0x5, 0x2) ioctl$sock_inet_SIOCSIFFLAGS(r0, 0x8914, &(0x7f0000000180)={'rose0\x00', 0x201}) r1 = syz_init_net_socket$rose(0xb, 0x5, 0x0) bind$rose(r1, &(0x7f00000000c0)=@full={0xb, @dev, @null, 0x0, [@null, @null, @netrom, @netrom, @default, @null]}, 0x40) connect$rose(r1, &(0x7f0000000240)=@short={0xb, @dev={0xbb, 0xbb, 0xbb, 0x1, 0x0}, @remote={0xcc, 0xcc, 0xcc, 0xcc, 0xcc, 0xcc, 0x1}, 0x1, @netrom={0xbb, 0xbb, 0xbb, 0xbb, 0xbb, 0x0, 0x0}}, 0x1c)

• CWE-476NULL Pointer DereferenceThe product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL.