# CVE-2022-50860: apparmor: Fix memleak in alloc_ns()

> A memory leak in the Linux kernel's AppArmor module allows attackers to cause a denial of service by exhausting system memory.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **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:** Yes
- **Published:** 30 Dec 2025
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50860, GHSA-g5ph-9wmf-49w8, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50860

## What is CVE-2022-50860?

CVE-2022-50860 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 30 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:

apparmor: Fix memleak in alloc_ns()

After changes in commit a1bd627b46d1 ("apparmor: share profile name on
replacement"), the hname member of struct aa_policy is not valid slab
object, but a subset of that, it can not be freed by kfree_sensitive(),
use aa_policy_destroy() to fix it.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50860?


## How do I fix CVE-2022-50860?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2022-50860 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50860 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2022-50860 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-50860 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 30 Dec 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50860 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-50860/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-50860/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-50860
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-50860
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-50860

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-50860/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.