CVE-2022-50269: drm/vkms: Fix memory leak in vkms_init()

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: 2025-09-15 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-401

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/vkms: Fix memory leak in vkms_init() A memory leak was reported after the vkms module install failed. unreferenced object 0xffff88810bc28520 (size 16): comm "modprobe", pid 9662, jiffies 4298009455 (age 42.590s) hex dump (first 16 bytes): 01 01 00 64 81 88 ff ff 00 00 dc 0a 81 88 ff ff ...d............ backtrace: [<00000000e7561ff8>] kmalloc_trace+0x27/0x60 [<000000000b1954a0>] 0xffffffffc45200a9 [<00000000abbf1da0>] do_one_initcall+0xd0/0x4f0 [<000000001505ee87>] do_init_module+0x1a4/0x680 [<00000000958079ad>] load_module+0x6249/0x7110 [<00000000117e4696>] __do_sys_finit_module+0x140/0x200 [<00000000f74b12d2>] do_syscall_64+0x35/0x80 [<000000008fc6fcde>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x46/0xb0 The reason is that the vkms_init() returns without checking the return value of vkms_create(), and if the vkms_create() failed, the config allocated at the beginning of vkms_init() is leaked. vkms_init() config = kmalloc(...) # config allocated ... return vkms_create() # vkms_create failed and config is leaked Fix this problem by checking return value of vkms_create() and free the config if error happened.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 5.12 before 5.15.99; from 5.16 before 6.1.16; from 6.2 before 6.2.3 — fixed in 5.15.99, 6.1.16, 6.2.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.15.99, 6.1.16, 6.2.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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