CVE-2022-50446
Unknown Unknown - Not Provided
BaseFortify

Publication date: 2025-10-01

Last updated on: 2025-10-02

Assigner: kernel.org

Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ARC: mm: fix leakage of memory allocated for PTE Since commit d9820ff ("ARC: mm: switch pgtable_t back to struct page *") a memory leakage problem occurs. Memory allocated for page table entries not released during process termination. This issue can be reproduced by a small program that allocates a large amount of memory. After several runs, you'll see that the amount of free memory has reduced and will continue to reduce after each run. All ARC CPUs are effected by this issue. The issue was introduced since the kernel stable release v5.15-rc1. As described in commit d9820ff after switch pgtable_t back to struct page *, a pointer to "struct page" and appropriate functions are used to allocate and free a memory page for PTEs, but the pmd_pgtable macro hasn't changed and returns the direct virtual address from the PMD (PGD) entry. Than this address used as a parameter in the __pte_free() and as a result this function couldn't release memory page allocated for PTEs. Fix this issue by changing the pmd_pgtable macro and returning pointer to struct page.
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Meta Information
Published
2025-10-01
Last Modified
2025-10-02
Generated
2026-05-07
AI Q&A
2025-10-01
EPSS Evaluated
2026-05-05
NVD
CVE-2022-50446
Affected Vendors & Products
Showing 1 associated CPE
Vendor Product Version / Range
linux kernel 5.15-rc1
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
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KEV
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CWE ID Description
CWE-UNKNOWN
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AI Powered Q&A
Can you explain this vulnerability to me?

This vulnerability is a memory leakage issue in the Linux kernel affecting ARC CPUs. It occurs because memory allocated for page table entries (PTEs) is not properly released during process termination. The problem was introduced after a change in how page tables are managed (specifically, switching pgtable_t back to struct page *), but the macro used to free the memory did not correctly handle the new pointer type, causing the allocated memory to leak and reducing the amount of free memory over time.


How can this vulnerability impact me? :

This vulnerability can cause a gradual reduction in available free memory on affected ARC CPUs due to memory leakage when processes terminate. Over time, this can lead to system instability, degraded performance, or even crashes if the system runs out of memory.


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