Reference page — cumulative record through Wednesday, August 19, 2026 UTC. Reference pages update as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record.
AV AC PR UI S C I A CVSS EPSS %ile KEV L L L N U N N H 5.5 .0031 23.2 —
AFFECTED Product Versions Fixed Linux 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 – — Linux 2.6.12 – 4.9.317
TIMELINE Feb 26 Reserved by Linux Feb 26 Published (CNA: Linux) Aug 4 RESCORED — CVE-2022-49264 (Linux). CVSS 7.8 → 5.5 (NVD).
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: exec: Force single empty string when argv is empty Quoting[1] Ariadne Conill: "In several other operating systems, it is a hard requirement that the second argument to execve(2) be the name of a program, thus prohibiting a scenario where argc < 1. POSIX 2017 also recommends this behaviour, but it is not an explicit requirement[2]: The argument arg0 should point to a filename string that is associated with the process being started by one of the exec functions. ... Interestingly, Michael Kerrisk opened an issue about this in 2008[3], but there was no consensus to support fixing this issue then. Hopefully now that CVE-2021-4034 shows practical exploitative use[4] of this bug in a shellcode, we can reconsider. This issue is being tracked in the KSPP issue tracker[5]." While the initial code searches[6][7] turned up what appeared to be mostly corner case tests, trying to that just reject argv == NULL (or an immediately terminated pointer list) quickly started tripping[8] existing userspace programs. The next best approach is forcing a single empty string into argv and adjusting argc to match. The number of programs depending on argc == 0 seems a smaller set than those calling execve with a NULL argv. Account for the additional stack space in bprm_stack_limits(). Inject an empty string when argc == 0 (and set argc = 1). Warn about the case so userspace has some notice about the change: process './argc0' launched './argc0' with NULL argv: empty string added Additionally WARN() and reject NULL argv usage for kernel threads. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220127000724.15106-1-ariadne@dereferenced.org/ [2] https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/exec.html [3] https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8408 [4] https://www.qualys.com/2022/01/25/cve-2021-4034/pwnkit.txt [5] https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/176 [6] https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=execve%5C+*%5C%28%5B%5E%2C%5D%2B%2C+*NULL&literal=0 [7] https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=execlp%3F%5Cs*%5C%28%5B%5E%2C%5D%2B%2C%5Cs*NULL&literal=0 [8] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220131144352.GE16385@xsang-OptiPlex-9020/
| Date | Event | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| February 26, 2025 | Reserved | Reserved by Linux |
| February 26, 2025 | Published | Published (CNA: Linux) |
| August 4, 2026 | RESCORED | RESCORED — CVE-2022-49264 (Linux). CVSS 7.8 → 5.5 (NVD). |
Authoritative record: CVE-2022-49264 at cve.org
Vendors: linux
Weaknesses: CWE-476
This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2022-49264 from the CVE Program record, NVD enrichment, the CISA KEV catalog, EPSS, and OSV advisories. The box score's numbers (CVSS, EPSS, KEV status) are current as of Wednesday, August 19, 2026 UTC and are re-derived as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record. The authoritative source for this identifier is cve.org.