The Linux kernel incorrectly sends ICMP or NDisc Redirect messages when it cannot allocate a peer entry due to memory pressure or internal limits. The redirect handlers treat a missing peer as a valid condition and call the send routine directly, bypassing the global rate‑limiting mask. This flaw produces an un‑rate‑limited storm of redirect packets that can exhaust network resources, degrade performance, or cause a denial of service on the local host or remote peers. The weakness is a classic uncontrolled resource consumption error.

All Linux kernel builds that lack the patch described in the commit chain are impacted. The vulnerable components include the IPv4 redirect generator (ip_rt_send_redirect), the IPv6 forwarding logic (ip6_forward), and the NDisc redirect helper (ndisc_send_redirect). No specific kernel version numbers are listed, so any kernel version before the patch commit is at risk.

The CVSS score of 7.5 indicates a high potential impact, while the EPSS score of < 1% shows a very low exploitation probability. The vulnerability is not in CISA’s KEV catalog, and no active exploits are known. Exploitation would likely require conditions where peer allocation fails – for example, sustained memory pressure or artificially induced neighbor table rebuilds. Inferred attack paths involve an attacker locally exhausting kernel memory or flooding the network with traffic that forces neighbor lookups to trigger the bug, leading to a redirect storm that consumes bandwidth and processing resources.