# CVE-2022-50446: ARC: mm: fix leakage of memory allocated for PTE

> A memory leak in the Linux kernel ARC architecture allows attackers to exhaust system memory, causing denial of service.

- **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:** 1 Oct 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50446, GHSA-wpvw-hhw9-p3qj, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50446

## What is CVE-2022-50446?

CVE-2022-50446 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 Oct 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:

ARC: mm: fix leakage of memory allocated for PTE

Since commit d9820ff ("ARC: mm: switch pgtable_t back to struct page *")
a memory leakage problem occurs. Memory allocated for page table entries
not released during process termination. This issue can be reproduced by
a small program that allocates a large amount of memory. After several
runs, you'll see that the amount of free memory has reduced and will
continue to reduce after each run. All ARC CPUs are effected by this
issue. The issue was introduced since the kernel stable release v5.15-rc1.

As described in commit d9820ff after switch pgtable_t back to struct
page *, a pointer to "struct page" and appropriate functions are used to
allocate and free a memory page for PTEs, but the pmd_pgtable macro hasn't
changed and returns the direct virtual address from the PMD (PGD) entry.
Than this address used as a parameter in the __pte_free() and as a result
this function couldn't release memory page allocated for PTEs.

Fix this issue by changing the pmd_pgtable macro and returning pointer to
struct page.

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

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50446?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-50446?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2022-50446 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50446 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-2022-50446 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-50446 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 Oct 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-2022-50446 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-2022-50446/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-50446/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-50446
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-50446
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-50446

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-50446/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.