CVE-2022-50451 fs/ntfs3: Fix memory leak on ntfs_fill_super() error path

Medium 5.5 Published 1 Oct 2025 Updated 15 Aug 2026

A memory leak in the Linux kernel NTFS3 driver allows local attackers to cause 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-2022-50451?

CVE-2022-50451 is a medium-severity memory corruption 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:

fs/ntfs3: Fix memory leak on ntfs_fill_super() error path

syzbot reported kmemleak as below:

BUG: memory leak unreferenced object 0xffff8880122f1540 (size 32): comm "a.out", pid 6664, jiffies 4294939771 (age 25.500s) 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 ed ff ed ff 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace: [<ffffffff81b16052>] ntfs_init_fs_context+0x22/0x1c0 [<ffffffff8164aaa7>] alloc_fs_context+0x217/0x430 [<ffffffff81626dd4>] path_mount+0x704/0x1080 [<ffffffff81627e7c>] __x64_sys_mount+0x18c/0x1d0 [<ffffffff84593e14>] do_syscall_64+0x34/0xb0 [<ffffffff84600087>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd

This patch fixes this issue by freeing mount options on error path of ntfs_fill_super().

Weakness: CWE-401

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50451?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2022-50451?

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-2022-50451 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50451 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50451, GHSA-hfqr-838f-pj36, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2022-50451, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50451.