CVE-2022-50466: fs/binfmt_elf: Fix memory leak in load_elf_binary()

Q: What is the severity of CVE-2022-50466?

CVE-2022-50466 is classified as a medium-severity vulnerability due to a memory leak in the Linux kernel.

Q: How do I fix CVE-2022-50466?

To fix CVE-2022-50466, update the Linux kernel to the latest stable version that includes the patch for this vulnerability.

Q: What causes CVE-2022-50466?

CVE-2022-50466 is caused by a memory leak during the execution of the load_elf_binary() function in the Linux kernel.

Q: Which versions of the Linux kernel are affected by CVE-2022-50466?

CVE-2022-50466 affects specific versions of the Linux kernel that include the vulnerable implementation of the load_elf_binary() function.

Q: What impact does CVE-2022-50466 have on system performance?

CVE-2022-50466 can lead to increased memory usage over time, potentially degrading system performance due to the memory leak.

Published Oct 1, 2025

Updated

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

fs/binfmtelf: Fix memory leak in loadelfbinary()

There is a memory leak reported by kmemleak:

unreferenced object 0xffff88817104ef80 (size 224): comm "xfsadmin", pid 47165, jiffies 4298708825 (age 1333.476s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 60 a8 b3 00 81 88 ff ff a8 10 5a 00 81 88 ff ff .........Z..... backtrace: [<ffffffff819171e1>] allocfile+0x21/0x250 [<ffffffff81918061>] allocemptyfile+0x41/0xf0 [<ffffffff81948cda>] pathopenat+0xea/0x3d30 [<ffffffff8194ec89>] dofilpopen+0x1b9/0x290 [<ffffffff8192660e>] doopenexecat+0xce/0x5b0 [<ffffffff81926b17>] openexec+0x27/0x50 [<ffffffff81a69250>] loadelfbinary+0x510/0x3ed0 [<ffffffff81927759>] bprmexecve+0x599/0x1240 [<ffffffff8192a997>] doexecveatcommon.isra.0+0x4c7/0x680 [<ffffffff8192b078>] x64sysexecve+0x88/0xb0 [<ffffffff83bbf0a5>] dosyscall64+0x35/0x80

If "interpelfex" fails to allocate memory in loadelfbinary(), the program will take the "outfreeph" error handing path, resulting in "interpreter" file resource is not released.

Fix it by adding an error handing path "outfreefile", which will release the file resource when "interpelfex" failed to allocate memory.

Affected Software

124 affected componentsFixes available

Linux Kernel

Linux Linux kernel>=5.7<5.10.153

Linux Linux kernel>=5.11<5.15.77

Linux Linux kernel>=5.16<6.0.7

Linux Linux kernel=6.1-rc1

Linux Linux kernel=6.1-rc2

debian/linux

6.1.176-16.1.190-16.12.107-16.12.115-27.2.12-17.2.15-1

debian/linux<6.0.7-1

6.0.7-1

debian/linux<6.0.7-1

6.0.7-1

debian/linux<6.0.7-1

6.0.7-1

linux/kernel>=5.7.0<5.10.153

5.10.153

linux/kernel>=5.11.0<5.15.77

5.15.77

linux/kernel>=5.16.0<6.0.7

6.0.7

ubuntu/linux-hwe-edge*

ubuntu/linux-aws-5.0*

ubuntu/linux-aws-5.3*

ubuntu/linux-azure*

ubuntu/linux-azure-5.3*

ubuntu/linux-azure-edge*

ubuntu/linux-gcp*

ubuntu/linux-gcp-5.3*

ubuntu/linux-gke-4.15*

ubuntu/linux-gke-5.4*

ubuntu/linux-gkeop-5.4*

ubuntu/linux-hwe*

ubuntu/linux-hwe-edge*

ubuntu/linux-oem*

ubuntu/linux-oracle-5.0*

ubuntu/linux-oracle-5.3*

ubuntu/linux-aws-5.15<5.15.0-1030.34~20.04.1

5.15.0-1030.34~20.04.1

ubuntu/linux-azure-5.15<5.15.0-1033.40~20.04.1

5.15.0-1033.40~20.04.1

ubuntu/linux-gcp-5.15<5.15.0-1029.36~20.04.1

5.15.0-1029.36~20.04.1

ubuntu/linux-hwe-5.15<5.15.0-60.66~20.04.1

5.15.0-60.66~20.04.1

ubuntu/linux-intel-iotg-5.15<5.15.0-1025.30~20.04.1

5.15.0-1025.30~20.04.1

ubuntu/linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15<5.15.0-60.66~20.04.1

5.15.0-60.66~20.04.1

ubuntu/linux-oracle-5.15<5.15.0-1029.35~20.04.1

5.15.0-1029.35~20.04.1

ubuntu/linux-riscv-5.15<5.15.0-1029.33~20.04.1

5.15.0-1029.33~20.04.1

ubuntu/linux-aws-5.11*

ubuntu/linux-aws-5.13*

ubuntu/linux-aws-5.8*

ubuntu/linux-azure-5.11*

ubuntu/linux-azure-5.13*

ubuntu/linux-azure-5.8*

ubuntu/linux-azure-fde*

ubuntu/linux-gcp-5.11*

ubuntu/linux-gcp-5.13*

ubuntu/linux-gcp-5.8*

ubuntu/linux-gke*

ubuntu/linux-gke-5.15*

ubuntu/linux-gkeop*

ubuntu/linux-gkeop-5.15*

ubuntu/linux-hwe-5.11*

ubuntu/linux-hwe-5.13*

ubuntu/linux-hwe-5.8*

ubuntu/linux-intel-5.13*

ubuntu/linux-oem-5.10*

ubuntu/linux-oem-5.13*

ubuntu/linux-oem-5.6*

ubuntu/linux-oracle-5.11*

ubuntu/linux-oracle-5.13*

ubuntu/linux-oracle-5.8*

ubuntu/linux-raspi2*

ubuntu/linux-riscv*

ubuntu/linux-riscv-5.11*

ubuntu/linux-riscv-5.8*

ubuntu/linux<5.15.0-60.66

5.15.0-60.66

ubuntu/linux-allwinner-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-aws<5.15.0-1030.34

5.15.0-1030.34

ubuntu/linux-aws-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-aws-6.2*

ubuntu/linux-aws-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-azure<5.15.0-1033.40

5.15.0-1033.40

ubuntu/linux-azure-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-azure-6.2*

ubuntu/linux-azure-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-azure-fde<5.15.0-1033.40.1

5.15.0-1033.40.1

ubuntu/linux-azure-fde-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-azure-fde-6.2*

ubuntu/linux-gcp<5.15.0-1029.36

5.15.0-1029.36

ubuntu/linux-gcp-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-gcp-6.2*

ubuntu/linux-gcp-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-gke<5.15.0-1027.32

5.15.0-1027.32

ubuntu/linux-gkeop<5.15.0-1015.19

5.15.0-1015.19

ubuntu/linux-hwe-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-hwe-6.2*

ubuntu/linux-hwe-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-ibm<5.15.0-1025.28

5.15.0-1025.28

ubuntu/linux-intel-iot-realtime*

ubuntu/linux-intel-iotg<5.15.0-1025.30

5.15.0-1025.30

ubuntu/linux-kvm<5.15.0-1028.33

5.15.0-1028.33

ubuntu/linux-lowlatency<5.15.0-60.66

5.15.0-60.66

ubuntu/linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.2*

ubuntu/linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-nvidia<5.15.0-1017.17

5.15.0-1017.17

ubuntu/linux-nvidia-6.2*

ubuntu/linux-nvidia-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-oem-5.17*

ubuntu/linux-oem-6.0*

ubuntu/linux-oem-6.1*

ubuntu/linux-oem-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-oracle<5.15.0-1029.35

5.15.0-1029.35

ubuntu/linux-oracle-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-raspi<5.15.0-1024.26

5.15.0-1024.26

ubuntu/linux-realtime*

ubuntu/linux-riscv*

ubuntu/linux-riscv-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-riscv-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-starfive-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-starfive-6.2*

ubuntu/linux-starfive-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-bluefield<5.15.0-1014.16

5.15.0-1014.16

ubuntu/linux-azure-6.11*

ubuntu/linux-gcp-6.11*

ubuntu/linux-hwe-6.11*

ubuntu/linux-intel*

ubuntu/linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.11*

ubuntu/linux-oem-6.11*

ubuntu/linux-oem-6.8*

ubuntu/linux-raspi-realtime*

ubuntu/linux-realtime*

ubuntu/linux-riscv*

ubuntu/linux-vmware*

Remediation

Recommended actions to resolve this vulnerability, in priority order.

Upgrade
Upgrade debian/linux to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 6.0.7-1
Upgrade
Upgrade debian/linux to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 6.1.176-1Fixed in 6.1.190-1Fixed in 6.12.107-1Fixed in 6.12.115-2Fixed in 7.2.12-1Fixed in 7.2.15-1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-aws-5.15 to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1030.34~20.04.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-azure-5.15 to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1033.40~20.04.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-gcp-5.15 to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1029.36~20.04.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-hwe-5.15 to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-60.66~20.04.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-intel-iotg-5.15 to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1025.30~20.04.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15 to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-60.66~20.04.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-oracle-5.15 to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1029.35~20.04.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-riscv-5.15 to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1029.33~20.04.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-60.66
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-aws to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1030.34
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-azure to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1033.40
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-azure-fde to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1033.40.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-gcp to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1029.36
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-gke to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1027.32
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-gkeop to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1015.19
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-ibm to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1025.28
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-intel-iotg to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1025.30
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-kvm to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1028.33
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-lowlatency to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-60.66
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-nvidia to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1017.17
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-oracle to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1029.35
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-raspi to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1024.26
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-bluefield to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.0-1014.16
Upgrade
Upgrade linux/Kernel to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.10.153
Upgrade
Upgrade linux/Kernel to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 5.15.77
Upgrade
Upgrade linux/Kernel to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 6.0.7
Compensating control
In fs/binfmt_elf, add the error-handling path "out_free_file" in load_elf_binary() so that the interpreter file resource is released when interp_elf_ex fails to allocate memory.

Event History

Oct 1, 2025

CVE Published

via MITRE·11:45 AM

Data Sourced

via MITRE·11:45 AM

Description

Data Sourced

via OSV·11:45 AM

DescriptionAffected Software

Data Sourced

via NVD·12:15 PM

RemedyDescriptionSeverityWeaknessAffected Software

Nov 11, 2026

Data Sourced

via OSV·09:37 AM

Severity

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the severity of CVE-2022-50466?

CVE-2022-50466 is classified as a medium-severity vulnerability due to a memory leak in the Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2022-50466?

To fix CVE-2022-50466, update the Linux kernel to the latest stable version that includes the patch for this vulnerability.

What causes CVE-2022-50466?

CVE-2022-50466 is caused by a memory leak during the execution of the load_elf_binary() function in the Linux kernel.

Which versions of the Linux kernel are affected by CVE-2022-50466?

CVE-2022-50466 affects specific versions of the Linux kernel that include the vulnerable implementation of the load_elf_binary() function.

What impact does CVE-2022-50466 have on system performance?

CVE-2022-50466 can lead to increased memory usage over time, potentially degrading system performance due to the memory leak.

CVE-2022-50466: fs/binfmt_elf: Fix memory leak in load_elf_binary()

Affected Software

Remediation

Event History

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the severity of CVE-2022-50466?

How do I fix CVE-2022-50466?

What causes CVE-2022-50466?

Which versions of the Linux kernel are affected by CVE-2022-50466?

What impact does CVE-2022-50466 have on system performance?

Company

Resources

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