Linux Kernel up to 5.10.120/5.15.45/5.17.13/5.18.2 __thermal_cooling_device_register memory leak

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability marked as critical has been reported in Linux Kernel up to 5.10.120/5.15.45/5.17.13/5.18.2. This affects the function __thermal_cooling_device_register. Performing a manipulation results in memory leak. This vulnerability was named CVE-2022-49468. There is no available exploit. It is suggested to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in Linux Kernel up to 5.10.120/5.15.45/5.17.13/5.18.2. This affects the function __thermal_cooling_device_register. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory leak vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-401. The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, which slowly consumes remaining memory. This is going to have an impact on availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: thermal/core: Fix memory leak in __thermal_cooling_device_register() I got memory leak as follows when doing fault injection test: unreferenced object 0xffff888010080000 (size 264312): comm "182", pid 102533, jiffies 4296434960 (age 10.100s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 ad 4e ad de ff ff ff ff 00 00 00 00 .....N.......... ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 40 7f 1f b9 ff ff ff ff ........@....... backtrace: [] kmalloc_order_trace+0x1d/0x110 mm/slab_common.c:969 [] __kmalloc+0x373/0x420 include/linux/slab.h:510 [] thermal_cooling_device_setup_sysfs+0x15d/0x2d0 include/linux/slab.h:586 [] __thermal_cooling_device_register+0x332/0xa60 drivers/thermal/thermal_core.c:927 [] devm_thermal_of_cooling_device_register+0x6b/0xf0 drivers/thermal/thermal_core.c:1041 [] max6650_probe.cold+0x557/0x6aa drivers/hwmon/max6650.c:211 [] i2c_device_probe+0x472/0xac0 drivers/i2c/i2c-core-base.c:561 If device_register() fails, thermal_cooling_device_destroy_sysfs() need be called to free the memory allocated in thermal_cooling_device_setup_sysfs().

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2022-49468 since 02/26/2025. The exploitability is told to be difficult. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 238226 (EulerOS 2.0 SP13 : kernel (EulerOS-SA-2025-1635)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 5.10.121, 5.15.46, 5.17.14 or 5.18.3 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 18530bedd221160823f63ccc20dd55c7a03edbcf/21ccc58b671aea924f2481cf5c1cf0ebbfd3552d/3802171f0b5b8b831f4ade5c827547cb323a5bb2/9abdf0c0184230f0cb5c6685aabf33dda89aa9fb/98a160e898c0f4a979af9de3ab48b4b1d42d1dbb is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at git.kernel.org. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at Tenable (238226). Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 5.10.120
• 5.15.0
• 5.15.1
• 5.15.2
• 5.15.3
• 5.15.4
• 5.15.5
• 5.15.6
• 5.15.7
• 5.15.8
• 5.15.9
• 5.15.10
• 5.15.11
• 5.15.12
• 5.15.13
• 5.15.14
• 5.15.15
• 5.15.16
• 5.15.17
• 5.15.18
• 5.15.19
• 5.15.20
• 5.15.21
• 5.15.22
• 5.15.23
• 5.15.24
• 5.15.25
• 5.15.26
• 5.15.27
• 5.15.28
• 5.15.29
• 5.15.30
• 5.15.31
• 5.15.32
• 5.15.33
• 5.15.34
• 5.15.35
• 5.15.36
• 5.15.37
• 5.15.38
• 5.15.39
• 5.15.40
• 5.15.41
• 5.15.42
• 5.15.43
• 5.15.44
• 5.15.45
• 5.17.0
• 5.17.1
• 5.17.2
• 5.17.3
• 5.17.4
• 5.17.5
• 5.17.6
• 5.17.7
• 5.17.8
• 5.17.9
• 5.17.10
• 5.17.11
• 5.17.12
• 5.17.13
• 5.18.0
• 5.18.1
• 5.18.2

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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CVSSv4info

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Exploitinginfo

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Entryinfo

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