CVE-2022-49994: 
Linux Kernel vulnerability analysis and mitigation

A vulnerability was identified in the Linux kernel's memory management system, specifically related to the handling of vmemmap pages in the bootmem subsystem. The issue was assigned CVE-2022-49994 and was disclosed on June 18, 2025. The vulnerability affects the Linux kernel's kmemleak (Kernel Memory Leak Detector) functionality (NVD).

The vulnerability occurs when vmemmap pages, which are marked by kmemleak when allocated from memblock, are not properly removed from kmemleak when being freed. When these pages are reused, kmemleak reports an error with the message 'Cannot insert 0xffff98fb6eab3d40 into the object search tree (overlaps existing)' and subsequently stops working. This leads to the kernel memory leak detector becoming disabled (NVD, Wiz).

When exploited, this vulnerability causes the kernel memory leak detector (kmemleak) to become disabled, which impacts system monitoring and debugging capabilities. This affects the system's ability to detect and track memory leaks in the kernel (Wiz).

The vulnerability has been resolved in the Linux kernel through a fix that properly removes vmemmap pages from kmemleak in the put_page_bootmem function. The fix ensures proper cleanup of vmemmap pages when they are freed (Wiz).