CVE-2022-50668

A deadlock vulnerability was found in the ext4 filesystem in the Linux kernel. When manipulating extended attribute (xattr) blocks, a race condition in non-atomic bitfield updates can cause the mbcache entry state to become corrupted. This leads to an infinite loop in ext4_xattr_block_set() where the code repeatedly finds an xattr block for reuse but cannot use it due to an inconsistent reference count state, causing a system hang.

This is a deadlock issue in ext4 filesystem's extended attribute handling that can cause system hangs. The vulnerability requires local access and specific xattr operations to trigger but can result in complete system unavailability when exploited.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.