CVE-2022-49891 tracing: kprobe: Fix memory leak in test_gen_kprobe/kretprobe_cmd()
A memory leak in the Linux kernel's kprobe tracing module allows attackers to cause a denial of service by exhausting system memory.
- 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-2022-49891?
CVE-2022-49891 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:
tracing: kprobe: Fix memory leak in test_gen_kprobe/kretprobe_cmd()
test_gen_kprobe_cmd() only free buf in fail path, hence buf will leak when there is no failure. Move kfree(buf) from fail path to common path to prevent the memleak. The same reason and solution in test_gen_kretprobe_cmd().
unreferenced object 0xffff888143b14000 (size 2048): comm "insmod", pid 52490, jiffies 4301890980 (age 40.553s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 70 3a 6b 70 72 6f 62 65 73 2f 67 65 6e 5f 6b 70 p:kprobes/gen_kp 72 6f 62 65 5f 74 65 73 74 20 64 6f 5f 73 79 73 robe_test do_sys backtrace: [<000000006d7b836b>] kmalloc_trace+0x27/0xa0 [<0000000009528b5b>] 0xffffffffa059006f [<000000008408b580>] do_one_initcall+0x87/0x2a0 [<00000000c4980a7e>] do_init_module+0xdf/0x320 [<00000000d775aad0>] load_module+0x3006/0x3390 [<00000000e9a74b80>] __do_sys_finit_module+0x113/0x1b0 [<000000003726480d>] do_syscall_64+0x35/0x80 [<000000003441e93b>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x46/0xb0
Weakness: CWE-401
Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49891?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2022-49891?
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-2022-49891 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49891 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49891, GHSA-4g9q-6gcq-f3vx, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49891.