CVE-2022-36086: Rust-Osdev Linked-List-Allocator

Critical severity, CVSS 9.8. EPSS: 0.9% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

linked_list_allocator is an allocator usable for no_std systems. Prior to version 0.10.2, the heap initialization methods were missing a minimum size check for the given heap size argument. This could lead to out-of-bound writes when a heap was initialized with a size smaller than `3 * size_of::<usize>` because of metadata write operations. This vulnerability impacts all the initialization functions on the `Heap` and `LockedHeap` types, including `Heap::new`, `Heap::init`, `Heap::init_from_slice`, and `LockedHeap::new`. It also affects multiple uses of the `Heap::extend` method. Version 0.10.2 contains a patch for the issue. As a workaround, ensure that the heap is only initialized with a size larger than `3 * size_of::<usize>` and that the `Heap::extend` method is only called with sizes larger than `2 * size_of::<usize>()`. Also, ensure that the total heap size is (and stays) a multiple of `2 * size_of::<usize>()`.

Affected products

• Rust-Osdev Linked-List-Allocator: before 0.10.2 (fixed in 0.10.2)

Published 2022-09-07. Last modified 2026-06-17.