In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ppp: fix memory leak in pad_compress_skb If alloc_skb() fails in pad_compress_skb(), it returns NULL without releasing the old skb. The caller does: skb = pad_compress_skb(ppp, skb); if (!skb) goto drop; drop: kfree_skb(skb); When pad_compress_skb() returns NULL, the reference to the old skb is lost and kfree_skb(skb) ends up doing nothing, leading to a memory leak. Align pad_compress_skb() semantics with realloc(): only free the old skb if allocation and compression succeed. At the call site, use the new_skb variable so the original skb is not lost when pad_compress_skb() fails.