Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2022-49546)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2022-49546). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 5.10.236, 5.15.46, 5.17.14, 5.18.3 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

x86/kexec: fix memory leak of elf header buffer

This is reported by kmemleak detector:

unreferenced object 0xffffc900002a9000 (size 4096):
comm "kexec", pid 14950, jiffies 4295110793 (age 373.951s)
hex dump (first 32 bytes):
7f 45 4c 46 02 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .ELF............
04 00 3e 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ..>.............
backtrace:
[<0000000016a8ef9f>] __vmalloc_node_range+0x101/0x170
[<000000002b66b6c0>] __vmalloc_node+0xb4/0x160
[<00000000ad40107d>] crash_prepare_elf64_headers+0x8e/0xcd0
[<0000000019afff23>] crash_load_segments+0x260/0x470
[<0000000019ebe95c>] bzImage64_load+0x814/0xad0
[<0000000093e16b05>] arch_kexec_kernel_image_load+0x1be/0x2a0
[<000000009ef2fc88>] kimage_file_alloc_init+0x2ec/0x5a0
[<0000000038f5a97a>] __do_sys_kexec_file_load+0x28d/0x530
[<0000000087c19992>] do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x90
[<0000000066e063a4>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae

In crash_prepare_elf64_headers(), a buffer is allocated via vmalloc() to
store elf headers. While it's not freed back to system correctly when
kdump kernel is reloaded or unloaded. Then memory leak is caused. Fix it
by introducing x86 specific function arch_kimage_file_post_load_cleanup(),
and freeing the buffer there.

And also remove the incorrect elf header buffer freeing code. Before
calling arch specific kexec_file loading function, the image insta…

Source: OSV.dev (Open Source Vulnerabilities) NVD OSV

Auto-generated summary

Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.

A vulnerability tracked as CVE-2022-49546 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 5.10.236, 5.15.46, 5.17.14, 5.18.3 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2022-49546" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2022-49546 (Kernel)
Patched: 5.10.236, 5.15.46, 5.17.14, 5.18.3 — apply immediately
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.

❓ What is the problem

A vulnerability (unclassified) exists in Kernel.

📍 Affected scope

Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of Kernel.

🔥 Severity

Severity: ?. Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.

🔧 How to fix

Update to 5.10.236, 5.15.46, 5.17.14, 5.18.3.

🛡️ Workaround

Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.

🔍 Detection

Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Run grep -r 'Kernel' . against your dependency files (package-lock.json, requirements.txt, go.sum) to find affected services.

Response actions

Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order

1
Identify exposure identify
```
grep -r 'Kernel' . | grep -v node_modules
```
リポジトリと本番環境の依存ファイル (package-lock.json / requirements.txt / go.sum / Gemfile.lock 等) で Kernel を grep し、稼働しているサービス・バージョンを把握する。
2
Apply patch patch
```
Upgrade Kernel to 5.10.236, 5.15.46, 5.17.14, 5.18.3
```
ステージング環境で 5.10.236, 5.15.46, 5.17.14, 5.18.3 に上げて回帰テスト → 本番反映。回帰テストはアプリの主要ハッピーパスを含めること。
3
Post-deployment verification verify
```
Confirm patched version is live in production
```
パッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。

Affected packages

Linux Kernel

[{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"3.17.0"},{"fixed":"5.10.236"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.11.0"},{"fixed":"5.15.46"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.16.0"},{"fixed":"5.17.14"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.18.0"},{"fixed":"5.18.3"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49546 linux Fixed in: 5.10.237-1
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49546 linux