Bug 2425028 (CVE-2022-50731) - CVE-2022-50731 kernel: crypto: akcipher - default implementation for setting a private key
Summary: CVE-2022-50731 kernel: crypto: akcipher - default implementation for setting ...
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2022-50731
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security DevOps Team
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2025-12-24 13:03 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2025-12-25 07:47 UTC (History)
0 users

Fixed In Version:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-12-24 13:03:05 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

crypto: akcipher - default implementation for setting a private key

Changes from v1:
  * removed the default implementation from set_pub_key: it is assumed that
    an implementation must always have this callback defined as there are
    no use case for an algorithm, which doesn't need a public key

Many akcipher implementations (like ECDSA) support only signature
verifications, so they don't have all callbacks defined.

Commit 78a0324f4a53 ("crypto: akcipher - default implementations for
request callbacks") introduced default callbacks for sign/verify
operations, which just return an error code.

However, these are not enough, because before calling sign the caller would
likely call set_priv_key first on the instantiated transform (as the
in-kernel testmgr does). This function does not have a default stub, so the
kernel crashes, when trying to set a private key on an akcipher, which
doesn't support signature generation.

I've noticed this, when trying to add a KAT vector for ECDSA signature to
the testmgr.

With this patch the testmgr returns an error in dmesg (as it should)
instead of crashing the kernel NULL ptr dereference.


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