CVE-2022-49086: net: openvswitch: fix leak of nested actions
Vulnerability summary
CVE-2022-49086 is a medium (CVSS 5.5) vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.27% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 18.9% of scored vulnerabilities.
Not severe (CVSS 5.5, local access); no exploitation reported by the 5 checked sources
Source freshness unavailable
How is this decided?Advisory lineage
Upstream 0 · Downstream 9 · Related 5Timeline
- 26-02-2025PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
- 11-05-2026Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: openvswitch: fix leak of nested actions While parsing user-provided actions, openvswitch module may dynamically allocate memory and store pointers in the internal copy of the actions. So this memory has to be freed while destroying the actions. Currently there are only two such actions: ct() and set(). However, there are many actions that can hold nested lists of actions and ovs_nla_free_flow_actions() just jumps over them leaking the memory. For example, removal of the flow with the following actions will lead to a leak of the memory allocated by nf_ct_tmpl_alloc(): actions:clone(ct(commit),0) Non-freed set() action may also leak the 'dst' structure for the tunnel info including device references. Under certain conditions with a high rate of flow rotation that may cause significant memory leak problem (2MB per second in reporter's case). The problem is also hard to mitigate, because the user doesn't have direct control over the datapath flows generated by OVS. Fix that by iterating over all the nested actions and freeing everything that needs to be freed recursively. New build time assertion should protect us from this problem if new actions will be added in the future. Unfortunately, openvswitch module doesn't use NLA_F_NESTED, so all attributes has to be explicitly checked. sample() and clone() actions are mixing extra attributes into the user-provided action list. That prevents some code generalization too.
CVSS metrics
4 scores · 3 sources · 2 versions- OSV · UbuntuEcosystem advisory · calculated5.5MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- OSV · DebianEcosystem advisory · calculated5.5MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS trend
Probability
0.27%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days
Percentile
19%
Versus all other CVEs
30-day change
No change 0.00 pp
From 0.27% on 04-10-2026
Known exploited
Compare KEV catalogs
CISA KEVNot in the CISA KEV catalog.
ENISA CNWNot in the ENISA CNW catalog.
CIRCLNot in the CIRCL catalog.
Public exploits
0 foundNo public exploits indexed.
Weaknesses
CWE · root causeAffected systems
Known conditions: local access, low-privilege account, no user interaction (CVSS vector). Other conditions: not stated in public data.
Ubuntu106 products
- linuxAll versions (No fix recorded) | < 5.4.0-126.142 | < 5.15.0-37.39
- linux-allwinner-5.19All versions (No fix recorded)
- linux-awsAll versions (No fix recorded) | < 5.4.0-1085.92 | < 5.15.0-1011.14
- linux-aws-5.0All versions (No fix recorded)
- linux-aws-5.11All versions (No fix recorded)
Linux2 products
- linux≥ 34ae932a40369be6bd6ea97d66b6686361b4370d, < 7438dc55c0709819b813f4778aec2c48b782990b | ≥ 34ae932a40369be6bd6ea97d66b6686361b4370d, < ef6f9ce0a79aa23b10fc5f3b3cab3814a25aac40 | ≥ 34ae932a40369be6bd6ea97d66b6686361b4370d, < 5ae05b5eb58773cfec307ff88aff4cfd843c4cff | ≥ 34ae932a40369be6bd6ea97d66b6686361b4370d, < 837b96d8103938e35e7d92cd9db96af914ca4fff | ≥ 34ae932a40369be6bd6ea97d66b6686361b4370d, < 3554c214b83ec9a839ed574263a34218f372990c | ≥ 34ae932a40369be6bd6ea97d66b6686361b4370d, < 53bce9d19b0a9d245b25cd050b81652ed974a509 | ≥ 34ae932a40369be6bd6ea97d66b6686361b4370d, < 1f30fb9166d4f15a1aa19449b9da871fe0ed4796 | 4.3
- linux_kernel≥ 4.3, < 4.19.249 | ≥ 4.20, < 5.4.200 | ≥ 5.5, < 5.10.111 | ≥ 5.11, < 5.15.34 | ≥ 5.16, < 5.16.20 | ≥ 5.17, < 5.17.3 | 5.18:rc1
Debian1 product
- linux< 5.17.3-1
3 vendors · 109 products
