# CVE-2022-49080: mm/mempolicy: fix mpol_new leak in shared_policy_replace

> A memory leak in the Linux kernel's shared policy replacement allows local attackers to exhaust system memory via concurrent memory binding operations.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 26 Feb 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49080, GHSA-rx6x-4frg-6jxm, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49080

## What is CVE-2022-49080?

CVE-2022-49080 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 26 Feb 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

mm/mempolicy: fix mpol_new leak in shared_policy_replace

If mpol_new is allocated but not used in restart loop, mpol_new will be
freed via mpol_put before returning to the caller.  But refcnt is not
initialized yet, so mpol_put could not do the right things and might
leak the unused mpol_new.  This would happen if mempolicy was updated on
the shared shmem file while the sp->lock has been dropped during the
memory allocation.

This issue could be triggered easily with the below code snippet if
there are many processes doing the below work at the same time:

  shmid = shmget((key_t)5566, 1024 * PAGE_SIZE, 0666|IPC_CREAT);
  shm = shmat(shmid, 0, 0);
  loop many times {
    mbind(shm, 1024 * PAGE_SIZE, MPOL_LOCAL, mask, maxnode, 0);
    mbind(shm + 128 * PAGE_SIZE, 128 * PAGE_SIZE, MPOL_DEFAULT, mask,
          maxnode, 0);
  }

Weakness: CWE-401 (Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49080?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-49080?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2022-49080 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49080 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2022-49080 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-49080 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 26 Feb 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49080 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-49080/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-49080/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-49080
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-49080
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-49080

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-49080/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.