CVE-2022-50631 RISC-V: kexec: Fix memory leak of fdt buffer
A memory leak in the Linux kernel RISC-V kexec implementation allows local attackers to exhaust system memory, causing 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-2022-50631?
CVE-2022-50631 is a memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 8 Dec 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:
RISC-V: kexec: Fix memory leak of fdt buffer
This is reported by kmemleak detector:
unreferenced object 0xff60000082864000 (size 9588): comm "kexec", pid 146, jiffies 4294900634 (age 64.788s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): d0 0d fe ed 00 00 12 ed 00 00 00 48 00 00 11 40 ...........H...@ 00 00 00 28 00 00 00 11 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 ...(............ backtrace: [<00000000f95b17c4>] kmemleak_alloc+0x34/0x3e [<00000000b9ec8e3e>] kmalloc_order+0x9c/0xc4 [<00000000a95cf02e>] kmalloc_order_trace+0x34/0xb6 [<00000000f01e68b4>] __kmalloc+0x5c2/0x62a [<000000002bd497b2>] kvmalloc_node+0x66/0xd6 [<00000000906542fa>] of_kexec_alloc_and_setup_fdt+0xa6/0x6ea [<00000000e1166bde>] elf_kexec_load+0x206/0x4ec [<0000000036548e09>] kexec_image_load_default+0x40/0x4c [<0000000079fbe1b4>] sys_kexec_file_load+0x1c4/0x322 [<0000000040c62c03>] ret_from_syscall+0x0/0x2
In elf_kexec_load(), a buffer is allocated via kvmalloc() to store fdt. While it's not freed back to system when kexec kernel is reloaded or unloaded. Then memory leak is caused. Fix it by introducing riscv specific function arch_kimage_file_post_load_cleanup(), and freeing the buffer there.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50631?
How do I fix CVE-2022-50631?
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-2022-50631 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50631 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50631, GHSA-jgrf-v335-cj7m, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50631.