diff --git a/src/common/cryptohash_openssl.c b/src/common/cryptohash_openssl.c
index 118651c415..fa06d70e72 100644
--- a/src/common/cryptohash_openssl.c
+++ b/src/common/cryptohash_openssl.c
@@ -31,11 +31,12 @@
 #endif
 
 /*
- * In backend, use palloc/pfree to ease the error handling.  In frontend,
- * use malloc to be able to return a failure status back to the caller.
+ * In backend, use an allocation in TopMemoryContext to count for resowner
+ * cleanup handling.  In frontend, use malloc to be able to return a failure
+ * status back to the caller.
  */
 #ifndef FRONTEND
-#define ALLOC(size) palloc(size)
+#define ALLOC(size) MemoryContextAlloc(TopMemoryContext, size)
 #define FREE(ptr) pfree(ptr)
 #else
 #define ALLOC(size) malloc(size)