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Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime

CVE-2025-38546

Medium
5.5/10

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: atm: clip: Fix memory leak of struct clip_vcc. ioctl(ATMARP_MKIP) allocates struct clip_vcc and set it to vcc->user_back. The code assumes that vcc_destroy_socket() passes NULL skb to vcc->push() when the socket is close()d, and then clip_push() frees clip_vcc. However, ioctl(ATMARPD_CTRL) sets NULL to vcc->push() in atm_init_atmarp(), resulting in memory leak. Let's serialise two ioctl() by lock_sock() and check vcc->push() in atm_init_atmarp() to prevent memleak.

  • LOW
  • LOCAL
  • NONE
  • UNCHANGED
  • NONE
  • LOW
  • NONE
  • HIGH

CWE-401 - Missing release of memory after effective lifetime (memory leak)

'Missing release of memory after effective lifetime (memory leak)' is a weakness that occurs when software doesn't effectively release allocated memory after it is used. If not addressed, this enables attackers to launch denial of service attacks (by crashing or hanging the program) or take advantage of other unexpected behavior resulting from low memory conditions.

References

Advisory Timeline

  • Published