CVE-2022-50469 staging: rtl8723bs: fix potential memory leak in rtw_init_drv_sw()
A memory leak in the rtl8723bs driver allows attackers to exhaust system memory, causing 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-2022-50469?
CVE-2022-50469 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:
staging: rtl8723bs: fix potential memory leak in rtw_init_drv_sw()
In rtw_init_drv_sw(), there are various init functions are called to populate the padapter structure and some checks for their return value. However, except for the first one error path, the other five error paths do not properly release the previous allocated resources, which leads to various memory leaks.
This patch fixes them and keeps the success and error separate. Note that these changes keep the form of `rtw_init_drv_sw()` in "drivers/staging/r8188eu/os_dep/os_intfs.c". As there is no proper device to test with, no runtime testing was performed.
Weakness: CWE-401
Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50469?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2022-50469?
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-2022-50469 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50469 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50469, GHSA-fv3v-376j-hcpx, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2022-50469, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50469.