CVE-2022-49784 perf/x86/amd/uncore: Fix memory leak for events array

Medium 5.5 Published 1 May 2025 Updated 11 May 2026

A memory leak in the Linux kernel's AMD uncore performance monitoring driver can lead to resource exhaustion and denial of service.

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

What is CVE-2022-49784?

CVE-2022-49784 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 May 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:

perf/x86/amd/uncore: Fix memory leak for events array

When a CPU comes online, the per-CPU NB and LLC uncore contexts are freed but not the events array within the context structure. This causes a memory leak as identified by the kmemleak detector.

[...] unreferenced object 0xffff8c5944b8e320 (size 32): comm "swapper/0", pid 1, jiffies 4294670387 (age 151.072s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace: [<000000000759fb79>] amd_uncore_cpu_up_prepare+0xaf/0x230 [<00000000ddc9e126>] cpuhp_invoke_callback+0x2cf/0x470 [<0000000093e727d4>] cpuhp_issue_call+0x14d/0x170 [<0000000045464d54>] __cpuhp_setup_state_cpuslocked+0x11e/0x330 [<0000000069f67cbd>] __cpuhp_setup_state+0x6b/0x110 [<0000000015365e0f>] amd_uncore_init+0x260/0x321 [<00000000089152d2>] do_one_initcall+0x3f/0x1f0 [<000000002d0bd18d>] kernel_init_freeable+0x1ca/0x212 [<0000000030be8dde>] kernel_init+0x11/0x120 [<0000000059709e59>] ret_from_fork+0x22/0x30 unreferenced object 0xffff8c5944b8dd40 (size 64): comm "swapper/0", pid 1, jiffies 4294670387 (age 151.072s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace: [<00000000306efe8b>] amd_uncore_cpu_up_prepare+0x183/0x230 [<00000000ddc9e126>] cpuhp_invoke_callback+0x2cf/0x470 [<0000000093e727d4>] cpuhp_issue_call+0x14d/0x170 [<0000000045464d54>] __cpuhp_setup_state_cpuslocked+0x11e/0x330 [<0000000069f67cbd>] __cpuhp_setup_state+0x6b/0x110 [<0000000015365e0f>] amd_uncore_init+0x260/0x321 [<00000000089152d2>] do_one_initcall+0x3f/0x1f0 [<000000002d0bd18d>] kernel_init_freeable+0x1ca/0x212 [<0000000030be8dde>] kernel_init+0x11/0x120 [<0000000059709e59>] ret_from_fork+0x22/0x30 [...]

Fix the problem by freeing the events array before freeing the uncore context.

Weakness: CWE-401

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49784?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2022-49784?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.

Is CVE-2022-49784 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49784 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49784, GHSA-m6c5-jhrw-6658, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49784.