CVE-2022-50466 fs/binfmt_elf: Fix memory leak in load_elf_binary()
A memory leak in the Linux kernel's ELF binary loader can lead to 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-2022-50466?
CVE-2022-50466 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:
fs/binfmt_elf: Fix memory leak in load_elf_binary()
There is a memory leak reported by kmemleak:
unreferenced object 0xffff88817104ef80 (size 224): comm "xfs_admin", pid 47165, jiffies 4298708825 (age 1333.476s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 60 a8 b3 00 81 88 ff ff a8 10 5a 00 81 88 ff ff `.........Z..... backtrace: [<ffffffff819171e1>] __alloc_file+0x21/0x250 [<ffffffff81918061>] alloc_empty_file+0x41/0xf0 [<ffffffff81948cda>] path_openat+0xea/0x3d30 [<ffffffff8194ec89>] do_filp_open+0x1b9/0x290 [<ffffffff8192660e>] do_open_execat+0xce/0x5b0 [<ffffffff81926b17>] open_exec+0x27/0x50 [<ffffffff81a69250>] load_elf_binary+0x510/0x3ed0 [<ffffffff81927759>] bprm_execve+0x599/0x1240 [<ffffffff8192a997>] do_execveat_common.isra.0+0x4c7/0x680 [<ffffffff8192b078>] __x64_sys_execve+0x88/0xb0 [<ffffffff83bbf0a5>] do_syscall_64+0x35/0x80
If "interp_elf_ex" fails to allocate memory in load_elf_binary(), the program will take the "out_free_ph" error handing path, resulting in "interpreter" file resource is not released.
Fix it by adding an error handing path "out_free_file", which will release the file resource when "interp_elf_ex" failed to allocate memory.
Weakness: CWE-401
Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50466?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2022-50466?
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-2022-50466 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50466 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50466, GHSA-3r6g-ffrp-58wf, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50466.