CVE-2022-49890: Linux Kernel

Medium severity, CVSS 5.5. EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: capabilities: fix potential memleak on error path from vfs_getxattr_alloc() In cap_inode_getsecurity(), we will use vfs_getxattr_alloc() to complete the memory allocation of tmpbuf, if we have completed the memory allocation of tmpbuf, but failed to call handler->get(...), there will be a memleak in below logic: |-- ret = (int)vfs_getxattr_alloc(mnt_userns, ...) | /* ^^^ alloc for tmpbuf */ |-- value = krealloc(*xattr_value, error + 1, flags) | /* ^^^ alloc memory */ |-- error = handler->get(handler, ...) | /* error! */ |-- *xattr_value = value | /* xattr_value is &tmpbuf (memory leak!) */ So we will try to free(tmpbuf) after vfs_getxattr_alloc() fails to fix it. [PM: subject line and backtrace tweaks]

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: from 4.14, before 4.14.299 (fixed in 4.14.299); from 4.15, before 4.19.265 (fixed in 4.19.265); from 4.20, before 5.4.224 (fixed in 5.4.224); from 5.5, before 5.10.154 (fixed in 5.10.154); from 5.11, before 5.15.78 (fixed in 5.15.78); from 5.16, before 6.0.8 (fixed in 6.0.8); …

Published 2025-05-01. Last modified 2026-06-17.