CVE-2022-49996

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

btrfs: fix possible memory leak in btrfs_get_dev_args_from_path()

In btrfs_get_dev_args_from_path(), btrfs_get_bdev_and_sb() can fail if the path is invalid. In this case, btrfs_get_dev_args_from_path() returns directly without freeing args->uuid and args->fsid allocated before, which causes memory leak.

To fix these possible leaks, when btrfs_get_bdev_and_sb() fails, btrfs_put_dev_args_from_path() is called to clean up the memory.

Weakness

The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, making the memory unavailable for reallocation and reuse.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Choose a language or tool that provides automatic memory management, or makes manual memory management less error-prone.
• For example, glibc in Linux provides protection against free of invalid pointers.
• When using Xcode to target OS X or iOS, enable automatic reference counting (ARC) [REF-391].
• To help correctly and consistently manage memory when programming in C++, consider using a smart pointer class such as std::auto_ptr (defined by ISO/IEC ISO/IEC 14882:2003), std::shared_ptr and std::unique_ptr (specified by an upcoming revision of the C++ standard, informally referred to as C++ 1x), or equivalent solutions such as Boost.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4b124ad87244cd7f0883c5eaa38d2326b2154cad
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5f52402c77013e4a826394b807dd5ea4dc83bd72
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9ea0106a7a3d8116860712e3f17cd52ce99f6707