CVE-2022-50077 apparmor: fix reference count leak in aa_pivotroot()

What is CVE-2022-50077?

CVE-2022-50077 is a medium-severity memory corruption 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:

apparmor: fix reference count leak in aa_pivotroot()

The aa_pivotroot() function has a reference counting bug in a specific path. When aa_replace_current_label() returns on success, the function forgets to decrement the reference count of “target”, which is increased earlier by build_pivotroot(), causing a reference leak.

Fix it by decreasing the refcount of “target” in that path.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50077?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2022-50077?

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-2022-50077 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50077 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-2022-50077, GHSA-6q7v-49c4-hj5m, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50077.