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Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian

CVE-2022-38178

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2022-09-21
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 9.16.32 or later.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
By spoofing the target resolver with responses that have a malformed EdDSA signature, an attacker can trigger a small memory leak. It is possible to gradually erode available memory to the point where named crashes for lack of resources.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-401

Allocated memory is never released on some path, so a long-running service or a repeatedly triggered request steadily consumes memory until performance degrades or the process crashes. Attackers exploit it by simply driving the leaking path. Remediation is pairing every allocation with a release and using ownership patterns or tooling to catch what leaks.

General guidance for the memory leak class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Debian LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 11.0
FedoraOperating system
Affected:= 35= 36= 37
BindApplication
Affected:>= 9.9.12, <= 9.9.13>= 9.10.7, <= 9.10.8>= 9.11.3, <= 9.16.32= 9.11.3= 9.11.5= 9.11.6= 9.11.7= 9.11.8= 9.11.12= 9.11.14-s1= 9.11.19-s1= 9.11.21
Active Iq Unified ManagerApplication
Affected:all versions

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 9.16.32
Vendor patch www.openwall.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

ISC BIND 9.16.33 or later, or 9.18.x stable series (depending on your distribution's available packages)

  1. Identify the installed BIND9 (named) version using 'named -v' or 'rpm -q bind' / 'dpkg -l bind9'
  2. For Debian 11: Run 'apt update && apt install bind9' to upgrade to the patched version in Debian's repos
  3. For Fedora 35-37: Run 'dnf update bind' to install the patched bind package
  4. Alternatively, obtain and install ISC BIND 9.18.x or 9.16.33+ from source (https://www.isc.org/download/)
  5. After upgrade, restart the named service using 'systemctl restart named' or 'service named restart'
  6. Verify the new version is running with 'named -v' and confirm the vulnerability is addressed
  7. Monitor memory usage of named process post-upgrade to confirm the leak is resolved
Caveat BIND 9.18 is the current stable branch with new features; review release notes for any configuration changes if upgrading across major.minor versions

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can identify the exact fixed release, upgrade, and verify it in staging — typical engagement from $1,950. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2022-38178 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data