Local service interruption via unreleased firmware buffer
Published Feb 26, 2025 · Updated May 11, 2026
Memory leakage in the mt7921s driver in Linux 5.17 through 5.17.1 allows local users to exhaust kernel memory during firmware loading. The mt7921_load_patch routine obtains a firmware buffer with request_firmware() but finishes without calling release_firmware(), leaving the buffer allocated. A low-privileged local user must trigger firmware loading on a system using the affected MediaTek wireless driver; accumulated leakage interrupts service through memory exhaustion.
Summary
What happened
Memory leakage in the mt7921s driver in Linux 5.17 through 5.17.1 allows local users to exhaust kernel memory during firmware loading. The mt7921_load_patch routine obtains a firmware buffer with request_firmware() but finishes without calling release_firmware(), leaving the buffer allocated. A low-privileged local user must trigger firmware loading on a system using the affected MediaTek wireless driver; accumulated leakage interrupts service through memory exhaustion.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-49225
- Published
- Feb 26, 2025
- Updated
- May 11, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- CWE-401
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Feb 26, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 11, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=5.17
- Affected versionversion=78b217580c50994ae22dde4ecaaf147de0f355f6 <11005b18f453aa192d035d410c11d07edcba5a45
- Affected versionversion=78b217580c50994ae22dde4ecaaf147de0f355f6 <b301043384c5c2447357952be9a536c2026d8ad0
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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