The vulnerability originates in the nvdimm/btt subsystem of the Linux kernel. When BTT initialization fails, arenas allocated by discover_arenas() or create_arenas() are not released along certain error paths in btt_init(). This results in a memory leak that can continue to grow on repeated initialization failures.

The affected product is the Linux kernel. Kernel releases prior to the inclusion of the commit that adds free_arenas() to the relevant error handling code (commit 7e49684d90faa34ff6d5586be658e986d9d475ac) are potentially vulnerable; kernel maintainers should verify if their running kernel contains this commit.

The EPSS score is <1% and the CVSS score is 5.5, indicating a moderate severity with a low probability of public exploitation. The vulnerability is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog It is inferred that a local attacker or an environment that can repeatedly trigger BTT initialization failures could exploit this flaw to exhaust memory over time, potentially leading to a denial of service. No explicit attack vector is documented in the advisory, so this deduction is an inference based on the description.