CVE-2025-22022
NoneCVSS
—
EPSS
0.2%
Published
Apr 16, 2025
CISA due date
—
Cloudanix analysis
A flaw in the way certain USB hardware talks to the computer can cause crashes or scrambled data when high-speed devices like cameras are used, and fixing it requires updating the operating system and container software.
- Exploitation
- Physical Access
- Attacker needs
- Physical Access
- Complexity
- Moderate
- Impact
- Data Exposure
- Component
- OS kernel
- Class
- Memory Corruption
- Remediation
- Upgrade
- Effort
- Medium
- Patch risk
- Low
What it actually does
Missing chain bit on Link TRBs for isochronous endpoints on NEC uPD720200 xHCI controllers allows the host controller to traverse beyond the current transfer ring segment after missed service errors, producing IOMMU page faults and possible writes into unrelated buffers or segments.
Why it matters to the business
USB isochronous workloads (video, audio, high-bandwidth devices) on affected kernels can trigger system instability, I/O errors, or silent data corruption; container platforms using cri-o on Red Hat OpenShift 4.16 face elevated operational risk until kernel and package updates are applied.
How an attack unfolds
An attacker supplies sustained high-bandwidth isochronous traffic to a vulnerable NEC controller, inducing repeated missed service errors; the hardware then follows un-chained Link TRBs into adjacent memory pages, causing IOMMU faults or buffer overruns that may corrupt data belonging to other endpoints, devices, or IOMMU domains.
How to fix it
Apply the upstream kernel fix (commit abf2df229b6a9172cc1827749c1a446d28e00a2e) or equivalent stable backports; update cri-o to 1.29.9-6.rhaos4.16.gite7bd45a.el8 (or el9 equivalent) and python-zipp to 3.19.1-1.el9 on affected Red Hat OpenShift 4.16 deployments.
How to confirm the fix worked
Confirm presence of the Link TRB chain-bit change in xhci-ring.c or xhci.c after update; reproduce the original MSE workload and verify absence of IO_PAGE_FAULT and buffer-overrun log messages; check running kernel version against the fixed commit.
Typical attack path
- Attach or trigger isochronous USB device on NEC uPD720200 controller
- Generate sustained high-bandwidth traffic to produce missed service errors
- Force controller to process Link TRBs without chain bit set
- Hardware walks into adjacent ring segments or memory pages
- Observe IOMMU faults or buffer-overrun events leading to data corruption or denial of service
How to detect it
Search kernel logs for xhci_hcd messages containing "Miss service interval error", "IO_PAGE_FAULT", "buffer overrun event", "Transfer event TRB DMA ptr not part of current TD", and "Overrun event on slot"; correlate with IOMMU fault timestamps and USB device resets.
- xhci_hcd: Miss service interval error for slot
- AMD-Vi: Event logged [IO_PAGE_FAULT
- xhci_hcd: WARN: buffer overrun event for slot
- xhci_hcd: ERROR Transfer event TRB DMA ptr not part of current TD
- xhci_hcd: Overrun event on slot
What your security team should do
- Prioritize kernel and cri-o updates on all systems exposing USB isochronous devices
- Add monitoring for xhci_hcd "Miss service interval error" and "IO_PAGE_FAULT" messages
- Restrict untrusted USB devices on affected hardware until patches are deployed
- Review downstream package inventories for python-zipp and cri-o dependencies
The record
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: usb: xhci: Apply the link chain quirk on NEC isoc endpoints Two clearly different specimens of NEC uPD720200 (one with start/stop bug, one without) were seen to cause IOMMU faults after some Missed Service Errors. Faulting address is immediately after a transfer ring segment and patched dynamic debug messages revealed that the MSE was received when waiting for a TD near the end of that segment: [ 1.041954] xhci_hcd: Miss service interval error for slot 1 ep 2 expected TD DMA ffa08fe0 [ 1.042120] xhci_hcd: AMD-Vi: Event logged [IO_PAGE_FAULT domain=0x0005 address=0xffa09000 flags=0x0000] [ 1.042146] xhci_hcd: AMD-Vi: Event logged [IO_PAGE_FAULT domain=0x0005 address=0xffa09040 flags=0x0000] It gets even funnier if the next page is a ring segment accessible to the HC. Below, it reports MSE in segment at ff1e8000, plows through a zero-filled page at ff1e9000 and starts reporting events for TRBs in page at ff1ea000 every microframe, instead of jumping to seg ff1e6000. [ 7.041671] xhci_hcd: Miss service interval error for slot 1 ep 2 expected TD DMA ff1e8fe0 [ 7.041999] xhci_hcd: Miss service interval error for slot 1 ep 2 expected TD DMA ff1e8fe0 [ 7.042011] xhci_hcd: WARN: buffer overrun event for slot 1 ep 2 on endpoint [ 7.042028] xhci_hcd: All TDs skipped for slot 1 ep 2. Clear skip flag. [ 7.042134] xhci_hcd: WARN: buffer overrun event for slot 1 ep 2 on endpoint [ 7.042138] xhci_hcd: ERROR Transfer event TRB DMA ptr not part of current TD ep_index 2 comp_code 31 [ 7.042144] xhci_hcd: Looking for event-dma 00000000ff1ea040 trb-start 00000000ff1e6820 trb-end 00000000ff1e6820 [ 7.042259] xhci_hcd: WARN: buffer overrun event for slot 1 ep 2 on endpoint [ 7.042262] xhci_hcd: ERROR Transfer event TRB DMA ptr not part of current TD ep_index 2 comp_code 31 [ 7.042266] xhci_hcd: Looking for event-dma 00000000ff1ea050 trb-start 00000000ff1e6820 trb-end 00000000ff1e6820 At some point completion events change from Isoch Buffer Overrun to Short Packet and the HC finally finds cycle bit mismatch in ff1ec000. [ 7.098130] xhci_hcd: ERROR Transfer event TRB DMA ptr not part of current TD ep_index 2 comp_code 13 [ 7.098132] xhci_hcd: Looking for event-dma 00000000ff1ecc50 trb-start 00000000ff1e6820 trb-end 00000000ff1e6820 [ 7.098254] xhci_hcd: ERROR Transfer event TRB DMA ptr not part of current TD ep_index 2 comp_code 13 [ 7.098256] xhci_hcd: Looking for event-dma 00000000ff1ecc60 trb-start 00000000ff1e6820 trb-end 00000000ff1e6820 [ 7.098379] xhci_hcd: Overrun event on slot 1 ep 2 It's possible that data from the isochronous device were written to random buffers of pending TDs on other endpoints (either IN or OUT), other devices or even other HCs in the same IOMMU domain. Lastly, an error from a different USB device on another HC. Was it caused by the above? I don't know, but it may have been. The disk was working without any other issues and generated PCIe traffic to starve the NEC of upstream BW and trigger those MSEs. The two HCs shared one x1 slot by means of a commercial "PCIe splitter" board. [ 7.162604] usb 10-2: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 3 using xhci_hcd [ 7.178990] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 UNKNOWN(0x2003) Result: hostbyte=0x07 driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s [ 7.179001] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 CDB: opcode=0x28 28 00 04 02 ae 00 00 02 00 00 [ 7.179004] I/O error, dev sdb, sector 67284480 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x80700 phys_seg 5 prio class 0 Fortunately, it appears that this ridiculous bug is avoided by setting the chain bit of Link TRBs on isochronous rings. Other ancient HCs are known which also expect the bit to be set and they ignore Link TRBs if it's not. Reportedly, 0.95 spec guaranteed that the bit is set. The bandwidth-starved NEC HC running a 32KB/uframe UVC endpoint reports tens of MSEs per second and runs into the bug within seconds. Chaining Link TRBs allows the same workload to run for many minutes, many times. No ne ---truncated---
Affected packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Introduced | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian:11 | linux | 0 | No fix |
| Debian:12 | linux | 0 | No fix |
| Debian:13 | linux | 0 | No fix |
| Linux | Kernel | 0 | 6.12.22 |
| Linux | Kernel | 3.2.0 | 5.10.248 |
| Linux | Kernel | 3.2.0 | 6.12.22 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 | kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP6-RT_Update_16 | 0 | 1-150600.1.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 | kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP6_Update_16 | 0 | 1-150600.13.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP7 | kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP7-RT_Update_5 | 0 | 1-150700.1.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-64kb | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1.150600.12.32.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-zfcpdump | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | kernel-docs | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | kernel-syms | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Legacy 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 | kernel-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.52.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 | kernel-source-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.52.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 | kernel-syms-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.52.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 | kernel-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.55.1 |
| SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 | kernel-rt_debug | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.55.1 |
| SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 | kernel-source-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.55.1 |
| SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 | kernel-syms-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.55.1 |
| SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP7 | kernel-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.7.19.1 |
| SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP7 | kernel-source-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.7.19.1 |
| SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP7 | kernel-syms-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.7.19.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | dtb-aarch64 | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-64kb | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.52.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-debug | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1.150600.12.32.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-docs | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-kvmsmall | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-obs-qa | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.55.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-rt_debug | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.55.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-source-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.52.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-source-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.55.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-syms | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-syms-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.52.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-syms-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.55.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-zfcpdump | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
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