CVE-2022-49896: cxl/pmem: Fix cxl_pmem_region and cxl_memdev leak

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2025-05-01 · updated 2026-06-17

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: cxl/pmem: Fix cxl_pmem_region and cxl_memdev leak When a cxl_nvdimm object goes through a ->remove() event (device physically removed, nvdimm-bridge disabled, or nvdimm device disabled), then any associated regions must also be disabled. As highlighted by the cxl-create-region.sh test [1], a single device may host multiple regions, but the driver was only tracking one region at a time. This leads to a situation where only the last enabled region per nvdimm device is cleaned up properly. Other regions are leaked, and this also causes cxl_memdev reference leaks. Fix the tracking by allowing cxl_nvdimm objects to track multiple region associations.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.0 before 6.0.8; 6.1-rc1, 6.1-rc2, 6.1-rc3 — fixed in 6.0.8

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.0.8. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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