CVE-2022-50661 seccomp: Move copy_seccomp() to no failure path.
A local attacker can trigger memory leaks in the Linux kernel seccomp subsystem, potentially leading 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-2022-50661?
CVE-2022-50661 is a memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 9 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:
seccomp: Move copy_seccomp() to no failure path.
Our syzbot instance reported memory leaks in do_seccomp() [0], similar to the report [1]. It shows that we miss freeing struct seccomp_filter and some objects included in it.
We can reproduce the issue with the program below [2] which calls one seccomp() and two clone() syscalls.
The first clone()d child exits earlier than its parent and sends a signal to kill it during the second clone(), more precisely before the fatal_signal_pending() test in copy_process(). When the parent receives the signal, it has to destroy the embryonic process and return -EINTR to user space. In the failure path, we have to call seccomp_filter_release() to decrement the filter's refcount.
Initially, we called it in free_task() called from the failure path, but the commit 3a15fb6ed92c ("seccomp: release filter after task is fully dead") moved it to release_task() to notify user space as early as possible that the filter is no longer used.
To keep the change and current seccomp refcount semantics, let's move copy_seccomp() just after the signal check and add a WARN_ON_ONCE() in free_task() for future debugging.
[0]: unreferenced object 0xffff8880063add00 (size 256): comm "repro_seccomp", pid 230, jiffies 4294687090 (age 9.914s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................ backtrace: do_seccomp (./include/linux/slab.h:600 ./include/linux/slab.h:733 kernel/seccomp.c:666 kernel/seccomp.c:708 kernel/seccomp.c:1871 kernel/seccomp.c:1991) do_syscall_64 (arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80) entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe (arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:120) unreferenced object 0xffffc90000035000 (size 4096): comm "repro_seccomp", pid 230, jiffies 4294687090 (age 9.915s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 05 00 00 00 ................ 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace: __vmalloc_node_range (mm/vmalloc.c:3226) __vmalloc_node (mm/vmalloc.c:3261 (discriminator 4)) bpf_prog_alloc_no_stats (kernel/bpf/core.c:91) bpf_prog_alloc (kernel/bpf/core.c:129) bpf_prog_create_from_user (net/core/filter.c:1414) do_seccomp (kernel/seccomp.c:671 kernel/seccomp.c:708 kernel/seccomp.c:1871 kernel/seccomp.c:1991) do_syscall_64 (arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80) entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe (arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:120) unreferenced object 0xffff888003fa1000 (size 1024): comm "repro_seccomp", pid 230, jiffies 4294687090 (age 9.915s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace: bpf_prog_alloc_no_stats (./include/linux/slab.h:600 ./include/linux/slab.h:733 kernel/bpf/core.c:95) bpf_prog_alloc (kernel/bpf/core.c:129) bpf_prog_create_from_user (net/core/filter.c:1414) do_seccomp (kernel/seccomp.c:671 kernel/seccomp.c:708 kernel/seccomp.c:1871 kernel/seccomp.c:1991) do_syscall_64 (arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80) entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe (arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:120) unreferenced object 0xffff888006360240 (size 16): comm "repro_seccomp", pid 230, jiffies 4294687090 (age 9.915s) hex dump (first 16 bytes): 01 00 37 00 76 65 72 6c e0 83 01 06 80 88 ff ff ..7.verl........ backtrace: bpf_prog_store_orig_filter (net/core/filter.c:1137) bpf_prog_create_from_user (net/core/filter.c:1428) do_seccomp (kernel/seccomp.c:671 kernel/seccomp.c:708 kernel/seccomp.c:1871 kernel/seccomp.c:1991) do_syscall_64 (arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80) entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe (arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:120) unreferenced object 0xffff888 ---truncated---
Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50661?
How do I fix CVE-2022-50661?
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-2022-50661 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50661 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50661, GHSA-256c-6mf5-7f9p, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50661.