CVE-2022-50042 net: genl: fix error path memory leak in policy dumping

What is CVE-2022-50042?

CVE-2022-50042 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 18 Jun 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:

net: genl: fix error path memory leak in policy dumping

If construction of the array of policies fails when recording non-first policy we need to unwind.

netlink_policy_dump_add_policy() itself also needs fixing as it currently gives up on error without recording the allocated pointer in the pstate pointer.

Weakness: CWE-401

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50042?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2022-50042?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2022-50042 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50042 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50042, GHSA-9rc4-73xm-7x5m, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50042.