CVE-2022-50484 ALSA: usb-audio: Fix potential memory leaks

Medium 5.5 Published Updated

A memory leak in the Linux kernel's USB audio driver can lead to resource exhaustion and denial of service when allocation errors occur.

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-2022-50484?

CVE-2022-50484 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 4 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:

ALSA: usb-audio: Fix potential memory leaks

When the driver hits -ENOMEM at allocating a URB or a buffer, it aborts and goes to the error path that releases the all previously allocated resources. However, when -ENOMEM hits at the middle of the sync EP URB allocation loop, the partially allocated URBs might be left without released, because ep->nurbs is still zero at that point.

Fix it by setting ep->nurbs at first, so that the error handler loops over the full URB list.

Weakness: CWE-401

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50484?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2022-50484?

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-2022-50484 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50484 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50484, GHSA-fp6r-c5g5-wqvg, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50484.

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