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.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2022-49086 is rated Low Risk (22.5/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.01%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.
Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.
EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).
| # | Date | Old EPSS score | New EPSS score | Delta (New - Old) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026-04-12 | 0.06% | 0.01% | -0.05% |
| 2 | 2026-04-06 | 0.03% | 0.06% | +0.03% |
| 3 | 2025-11-21 | — | 0.03% | — |
Full EPSS history (9 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5.5 | 3.1 | MEDIUM |
|
1.8 | 3.6 | [email protected] |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
debian
|
not yet assigned | CVE-2022-49086 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (linux), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. | https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2022-49086 |
redhat
|
medium | — | https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-49086 |
suse
|
medium | — | https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-49086/ |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2022-49086 medium priority: Ubuntu including 158 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1551 status rows across 10 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1145, ignored 149, released 129, not-affected 109, needed 19. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2022-49086 |
| Vendor | Product | Version | Raw CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
| linux | linux_kernel | >= 4.3, < 4.19.249 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | >= 4.20, < 5.4.200 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | >= 5.5, < 5.10.111 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | >= 5.11, < 5.15.34 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | >= 5.16, < 5.16.20 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | >= 5.17, < 5.17.3 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 5.18 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.18:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:* |