The flaw lies in the NFC PN533 driver where fragment_skb structures remain allocated during a device’s removal and are not freed during cleanup. This leads to a memory leak in the kernel, consuming system RAM and potentially degrading overall system performance if the leak accumulates. The vulnerability does not provide direct code execution or data disclosure but threatens availability through resource exhaustion. The weakness is a classic memory leak defect.

Linux kernel implementations that include the PN533 NFC driver, such as the generic firmware driver referenced by the kernel CPE. The vulnerability applies to all kernel versions that ship the unpatched pn533 driver; no specific version range is listed, so any kernel including this driver without the patch is affected.

The CVSS score is not disclosed in the public data, but the EPSS score is unavailable and the issue is not listed in CISA’s KEV catalog, suggesting limited public exploitation. The likely attack vector is a physical removal of an NFC PN533 device while transmit buffers still contain queued fragments. An attacker with the ability to disconnect the device during active transmissions could trigger the leak. While the impact does not allow code execution or data exfiltration, repeated exploitation can exhaust memory, leading to service disruption.