CVE-2022-50566 mtd: Fix device name leak when register device failed in add_mtd_device()
A memory leak in the Linux kernel MTD subsystem allows local attackers to cause resource exhaustion and denial of service.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- An administrator
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2022-50566?
CVE-2022-50566 is a memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 22 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:
mtd: Fix device name leak when register device failed in add_mtd_device()
There is a kmemleak when register device failed: unreferenced object 0xffff888101aab550 (size 8): comm "insmod", pid 3922, jiffies 4295277753 (age 925.408s) hex dump (first 8 bytes): 6d 74 64 30 00 88 ff ff mtd0.... backtrace: [<00000000bde26724>] __kmalloc_node_track_caller+0x4e/0x150 [<000000003c32b416>] kvasprintf+0xb0/0x130 [<000000001f7a8f15>] kobject_set_name_vargs+0x2f/0xb0 [<000000006e781163>] dev_set_name+0xab/0xe0 [<00000000e30d0c78>] add_mtd_device+0x4bb/0x700 [<00000000f3d34de7>] mtd_device_parse_register+0x2ac/0x3f0 [<00000000c0d88488>] 0xffffffffa0238457 [<00000000b40d0922>] 0xffffffffa02a008f [<0000000023d17b9d>] do_one_initcall+0x87/0x2a0 [<00000000770f6ca6>] do_init_module+0xdf/0x320 [<000000007b6768fe>] load_module+0x2f98/0x3330 [<00000000346bed5a>] __do_sys_finit_module+0x113/0x1b0 [<00000000674c2290>] do_syscall_64+0x35/0x80 [<000000004c6a8d97>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x46/0xb0
If register device failed, should call put_device() to give up the reference.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50566?
How do I fix CVE-2022-50566?
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-2022-50566 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50566 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50566, GHSA-vc9x-p9c7-wp9p, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50566.