The defect involves the Linux kernel’s dmaengine axi_dmac subsystem where, upon encountering an allocation failure while preparing peripheral DMA vectors, the allocated descriptor is not fully freed. The missing cleanup can lead to a kernel-level memory leak, gradually draining available memory and potentially destabilizing the system. This constitutes a resource exhaustion weakness that could degrade performance or, under extreme conditions, trigger a kernel crash or denied‑service scenario. The vulnerability does not directly grant code execution or unauthorized privilege escalation, but it undermines system reliability and integrity by corrupting kernel memory usage statistics.

This issue exists in the Linux kernel’s DMA engine driver, specifically the dma-axi-dmac path. The affected subsystem is present in all kernel builds that include the standard dmaengine implementation. No specific vendor or version range is enumerated, but the patch references and commit logs indicate the problem existed across multiple kernel releases prior to the fix for the kernel master branch.

The EPSS score of < 1% indicates a very low probability of exploitation at the time the data was collected. The CVSS score of 5.5 indicates a moderate severity. The vulnerability has not been listed in CISA KEV. Exploitation would require local kernel access to trigger the failing allocation path, making the attack surface relatively limited. Consequently, admins should treat the memory‑leak risk as noteworthy because it can compound other kernel vulnerabilities and affect overall system stability.