What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2022-50285: mm,hugetlb: take hugetlb_lock before decrementing h->resv_huge_pages

• 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

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm,hugetlb: take hugetlb_lock before decrementing h->resv_huge_pages The h->*_huge_pages counters are protected by the hugetlb_lock, but alloc_huge_page has a corner case where it can decrement the counter outside of the lock. This could lead to a corrupted value of h->resv_huge_pages, which we have observed on our systems. Take the hugetlb_lock before decrementing h->resv_huge_pages to avoid a potential race.

Affected products

• Linux kernel: from 4.3.6 before 4.4; from 4.4.1 before 4.9.332; from 4.10 before 4.14.298; from 4.15 before 4.19.264; from 4.20 before 5.4.223; from 5.5 before 5.10.153 — fixed in 4.14.298, 4.19.264, 4.4, 4.9.332, 5.10.153, 5.15.76

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 4.14.298, 4.19.264, 4.4, 4.9.332. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/112a005d1ded04a4b41b6d01833cc0bda90625cc
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/11993652d0b49e27272db0a37aa828d8a3a4b92b
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/12df140f0bdfae5dcfc81800970dd7f6f632e00c
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2b35432d324898ec41beb27031d2a1a864a4d40e
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3e50a07b6a5fcd39df1534d3fdaca4292a65efe6
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/568e3812b1778b4c0c229649b59977d88f400ece
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/629c986e19fe9481227c7cdfd9a105bbc104d245
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c828fab903725279aa9dc6ae3d44bb7e4778f92c

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