The flaw resides in the Linux kernel’s handling of firmware‑initiated page faults during EFI runtime service calls. A recent commit changed the way FPU state is protected, setting a soft‑irq offset that makes the kernel believe it is in interrupt context even in normal task code. The page‑fault handler therefore misclassifies the fault, aborts the firmware call and triggers a kernel panic. The result is an unrecoverable system halt instead of the expected graceful EFI_ABORTED recovery, effectively disabling the machine for further use.

All Linux systems running kernel versions before the patch that introduced commit 088f65e206087bf903743bd18417261d7a4c9644 are potentially vulnerable. The issue is limited to the kernel’s EFI runtime support codepath and affects any distribution that has not yet upgraded to a kernel incorporating this change. Specific version data were not provided in the advisory, so administrators should check whether their kernel tree contains this commit or newer.

The vulnerability does not have an associated CVSS score or EPSS available, and it is not listed in CISA’s KEV catalog, indicating that it is not a known, widely exploited flaw. However, the exploit would require an attacker to induce a page fault through malicious EFI firmware or a firmware bug, which is a non‑common scenario. If such conditions are met, the impact is a hard crash that renders the system inoperable until reboot, making the risk high but the likelihood of successful exploitation relatively low under normal operational conditions.