This defect in the ext4 filesystem of the Linux kernel means that when an extent split operation fails, some stale extent entries can remain in the status tree because the cleanup step is omitted. Those entries persist in kernel memory and the filesystem state therefore may no longer accurately reflect the underlying data. The weakness is a failure to handle an error condition during extent manipulation.

All Linux kernel releases that include the ext4 filesystem code are potentially affected, because the issue resides in the generic ext4 implementation. No specific kernel version range is given, so any kernel compiled after the original commit date that still contains the ext4 module may be vulnerable until the patch is applied.

The EPSS score is not available and the vulnerability is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog, so its current exploitation probability cannot be quantified. No public exploits were reported in the supplied data. The bug would typically require an attacker to trigger an extent split failure – which normally needs local or privileged access – to exploit the stale entries. Therefore, while the potential impact on filesystem integrity exists, the likelihood of real-world exploitation under normal conditions remains uncertain, yet it cannot be entirely ruled out for systems that allow forced failures or that process untrusted data.