When the Linux kernel encounters an out‑of‑memory (ENOMEM) condition while it is iterating over writeback for netfs, the current folio remains locked and un‑redirtied. This improper state can prevent future writeback, stall the kernel’s I/O loop, and potentially corrupt data, resulting in a system hang or data loss. The flaw is a result of failing to reset the folio flags after an ENOMEM error, as addressed by the recent fix.

All releases of the Linux kernel that contain the netfs writeback logic are affected until the patch that implements the folio‑state cleanup is present. The patch is included in the kernel revisions referenced by the commit identifiers linked in the references. As the affected‑version range is not explicitly specified, all kernel deployments that have not yet applied the corresponding commit are vulnerable.

The CVSS score is 5.5, EPSS data is <1%, and the vulnerability is not listed in CISA KEV; the flaw requires a kernel running under memory pressure and the occurrence of an ENOMEM error during netfs writeback. There is no publicly documented remote exploitation path; an attacker would need to induce exhaustion of memory on a target with this kernel. The vulnerability’s impact is primarily a denial of service or potential data corruption if the writeback loop stalls. Because the bug is subtle and relies on a specific runtime condition, the risk is moderate to high for systems that frequently perform large amounts of network‑filesystem writes and may experience memory pressure.