Service interruption via regulator node reference leak
Published Jun 18, 2025 · Updated May 11, 2026
Reference-count leakage in the Linux kernel allows local users to interrupt service through repeated regulator constraint parsing. In drivers/regulator/of_regulator.c, of_get_regulation_constraints() obtains a child node with of_get_child_by_name() but skips of_node_put() when no suspend-state object exists, retaining the incremented reference. Reachability requires local low-privilege access and a device-tree regulator path that reaches the missing-release branch; the bounded consequence is availability loss.
Summary
What happened
Reference-count leakage in the Linux kernel allows local users to interrupt service through repeated regulator constraint parsing. In drivers/regulator/of_regulator.c, of_get_regulation_constraints() obtains a child node with of_get_child_by_name() but skips of_node_put() when no suspend-state object exists, retaining the incremented reference. Reachability requires local low-privilege access and a device-tree regulator path that reaches the missing-release branch; the bounded consequence is availability loss.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-50191
- Published
- Jun 18, 2025
- Updated
- May 11, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- T1499
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jun 18, 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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- Affected versionversion=3.19
- Affected versionversion=40e20d68bb3fb1ce2704c886d597918988d3321d <11ecb4f8735b0230d54a82c18b21ea778b695d61
- Affected versionversion=40e20d68bb3fb1ce2704c886d597918988d3321d <332e555dca074c4eb2084898021c3676423814c3
- Affected versionversion=40e20d68bb3fb1ce2704c886d597918988d3321d <35f9e861d9b9434903a8ede37a3561f78985826d
- Affected versionversion=40e20d68bb3fb1ce2704c886d597918988d3321d <66efb665cd5ad69b27dca8571bf89fc6b9c628a4
- Affected versionversion=40e20d68bb3fb1ce2704c886d597918988d3321d <a23098cc32860272dc6c3200ff20c34c65b7b694
- Affected versionversion=40e20d68bb3fb1ce2704c886d597918988d3321d <b9ca8585c766616563cf3c062c6878f61f83cf00
- Affected versionversion=40e20d68bb3fb1ce2704c886d597918988d3321d <c9df8ff290097aabd5c9200f7f729b0813d37b19
- Affected versionversion=40e20d68bb3fb1ce2704c886d597918988d3321d <fc7b19f547bc9e622060a0a9a39da2330aa21c53
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What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
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Technologies
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