The kernel bug causes a double‑free in the KASAN helper kasan_remove_zero_shadow when freeing page‑table structures that are not page‑aligned on certain architectures such as PowerPC. The double‑free triggers a KASAN panic and crashes the kernel, resulting in a denial‑of‑service but no evidence of arbitrary code execution or privilege escalation in the provided description.

Any Linux kernel that has not yet incorporated the commit correcting the kasan_free_pxd assumption. The public identifiers list the kernel as a product (Linux:Linux) and the CPE indicates the issue is relevant to all kernel versions. Administrators should verify that the kernel release in use contains the patch referenced in the commit URLs supplied in the advisory. The issue is demonstrated on PowerPC with 64K pagesize, but the underlying assumption may affect other architectures that use non‑aligned page tables.

The CVSS score of 7.8 reflects medium‑to‑high severity. The EPSS score of less than 1% indicates a very low probability of exploitation, and the vulnerability is not listed in the CISA KEV set. Exploitation requires triggering the vulnerable free path, for example by using pmem mapping or commands such as ndctl that exercise the code. In the absence of a patch, the risk is a targeted denial of service that could be triggered by an attacker with access to the vulnerable interface, but there is no documented path to arbitrary kernel code execution.