Technical impact
The kernel’s DRM Panthor module may leak memory when a group reference remains attached to pending tiler out‑of‑memory work that is cancelled before the work is processed. The reference is not released, causing a gradual increase in resident memory. This is a classic improper resource cleanup weakness (CWE‑772).
Affected Systems
All kernel builds that include the unpatched DRM Panthor code are affected. Because no specific kernel version range was specified, every instance of the kernel that contains the default Panthor implementation should be considered vulnerable until updated.
Risk and Exploitability
The CVSS score of 5.5 indicates moderate severity, and the EPSS score of less than 1% suggests a low probability of exploitation in the wild. The defect is not present in the CISA KEV catalog. Exploitation would likely require local privilege or an application with access to the DRM subsystem, and would trigger OOM conditions to force the leak to grow. Once enough memory is consumed, the kernel could panic or a reboot may be required, resulting in denial of service.
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