CVE-2022-49016

A vulnerability was found in the Linux kernel's mdiobus subsystem, causing unbalanced reference counts for firmware nodes (fwnode), leading to memory leaks and potential instability. The issue occurred because fwnode_mdiobus_phy_device_register() incremented the reference count for non-ACPI nodes without a corresponding decrement during device release, while the ACPI nodes lacked proper reference balancing in error paths.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is not vulnerable to this CVE, as it does not affect the versions or configurations of the Linux kernel used in its distributions.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.

Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.