CVE-2022-50998: Null Dereference (CVSS 7.5)

Description

Nokogiri before 1.13.9 (CRuby implementation using packaged libraries) bundles libxml2 v2.9.14, which is affected by CVE-2022-40304 (data corruption / double-free from an entity reference cycle when entity content is allocated from a dict) and CVE-2022-40303 (integer overflows when parsing with XML_PARSE_HUGE). Nokogiri 1.13.9 upgrades the packaged libxml2 to v2.10.3 to address these issues. Processing crafted XML input may lead to denial of service or memory corruption. (The advisory also references CVE-2022-2309, a NULL pointer dereference via iterwalk/canonicalize, which maintainers determined does not affect Nokogiri users.)

Is your site exposed to CVE-2022-50998?

Run a free security scan — no signup, results in seconds.

CVSS v3.1 Score

7.5

HIGH

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS — Exploit Prediction

0.0035

Probability of exploitation

0.28%

Percentile rank

EPSS estimates the probability that this vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. A higher score means more likely to be exploited.

Weakness Type (CWE)

CWE-476 CWE-476

References

Other References

https://github.com/GNOME/libxml2/commit/644a89e080bced793295f61f18aac8cfad6bece2 https://github.com/GNOME/libxml2/commit/c846986356fc149915a74972bf198abc266bc2c0 https://github.com/sparklemotion/nokogiri/security/advisories/GHSA-2qc6-mcvw-92cw https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nokogiri-before-multiple-vulnerabilities-via-libxml2-2

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2022-50998? +

Nokogiri before 1.13.9 (CRuby implementation using packaged libraries) bundles libxml2 v2.9.14, which is affected by CVE-2022-40304 (data corruption / double-free from an entity reference cycle when entity content is allocated from a dict) and CVE-2022-40303 (integer overflows when parsing with XML_PARSE_HUGE). Nokogiri 1.13.9 upgrades the packaged libxml2 to v2.10.3 to address these issues. Processing crafted XML input may lead to denial of service or memory corruption. (The advisory also references CVE-2022-2309, a NULL pointer dereference via iterwalk/canonicalize, which maintainers determined does not affect Nokogiri users.) It has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (HIGH).

How severe is CVE-2022-50998? +

CVE-2022-50998 has a CVSS v3.1 score of 7.5 out of 10, rated HIGH. This is a high-severity vulnerability that should be prioritized for patching. The EPSS score is 0.0035, placing it in the 0th percentile for exploitation probability.

How do I check if I'm vulnerable to CVE-2022-50998? +

You can use Secably's free Website Scanner to check your website for known vulnerabilities. For infrastructure scanning, use the Port Scanner to identify exposed services that may be affected. Check the vendor advisories linked above for specific patch and version information.

Related Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-8479

IEC 60870-5-104 used in bidirectional mode in RTU500 is vulnerable for a NULL pointer dereferencing, if a specially crafted sequence …

CVE-2025-24031

PAM-PKCS#11 is a Linux-PAM login module that allows a X.509 certificate based user login. In versions 0.6.12 and prior, the …

CVE-2025-31115

XZ Utils provide a general-purpose data-compression library plus command-line tools. In XZ Utils 5.3.3alpha to 5.8.0, the multithreaded .xz decoder …

CVE-2025-0121

A null pointer dereference vulnerability in the Palo Alto Networks Cortex® XDR agent on Windows devices allows a low-privileged local …

CVE-2023-45925

GNU Midnight Commander 4.8.29-146-g299d9a2fb was discovered to contain a NULL pointer dereference via the function x_error_handler() at tty/x11conn.c. NOTE: this …

CVE-2025-6398

A null pointer dereference vulnerability exists in the IOMap64.sys driver of ASUS AI Suite 3. The vulnerability can be triggered …

CVE-2022-50998