CVE-2022-4696 — There exists a use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel through io_uring

There exists a use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel through io_uring and the IORING_OP_SPLICE operation. If IORING_OP_SPLICE is missing the IO_WQ_WORK_FILES flag, which signals that the operation won't use current->nsproxy, so its reference counter is not incr

01What is this vulnerability?

There exists a use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel through io_uring and the IORING_OP_SPLICE operation. If IORING_OP_SPLICE is missing the IO_WQ_WORK_FILES flag, which signals that the operation won't use current->nsproxy, so its reference counter is not increased. This assumption is not always true as calling io_splice on specific files will call the get_uts function which will use…

02Affected products

No structured affected-product list available — see references below for vendor advisories.

03Active exploitation status

Not currently listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. EPSS is the best forward-looking signal — see the EPSS row above.

04Recommended remediation

• Patch to a fixed version listed in the vendor advisory (see references below).
• Mitigate with WAF rules, network egress filters, or feature flags where the patch is not yet available.
• Hunt historical logs for exploitation indicators — see Detection signatures below.

05Technical details

For the full vendor write-up, exploit chains, and reference implementations, see the references list in section 09.

06Detection signatures

Ask SARA in chat to draft a starting detection for this CVE in your stack of choice.

07Related CVEs

No directly-cited follow-up CVEs in the KB record for this advisory. The references list in section 09 carries the vendor cross-references.

08Timeline

• Published: 2023-01-11T13:15:09.307
• Last modified: 2026-09-01T18:05:07.353

09References

• git.kernel.org — https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?h=linux…
• kernel.dance — https://kernel.dance/#75454b4bbfc7e6a4dd8338556f36ea9107ddf61a
• git.kernel.org — https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?h=linux…
• kernel.dance — https://kernel.dance/#75454b4bbfc7e6a4dd8338556f36ea9107ddf61a
• security.netapp.com — https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230223-0003/