The kernel’s cortina Ethernet driver mistakenly treats the remaining NAPI budget returned by gmac_rx() as the number of packets received. Because of this logic error, idle polls falsely believe a full budget remains and the driver continues to be scheduled, causing continuous CPU usage and potential packet processing stalls. This uncontrolled resource consumption is a classic denial‑of‑service condition described by CWE‑835.

All Linux kernels that load the cortina driver are affected whenever the driver’s buggy budget accounting is present. The issue is present in any kernel configuration that includes the cortina driver, regardless of version, because the CVE does not specify a limited kernel range. Systems that enable this network interface – for instance, servers or embedded devices running generic Linux kernels – are therefore at risk.

With a CVSS score of 5.5 the vulnerability is considered moderate, and the EPSS score of < 1 % indicates a low chance of exploitation worldwide. The bug is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog. Exploitation would require triggering idle polling on the driver, so the attack vector is inferred to be local or potentially exploit‑able by a privileged user or a compromised kernel module. Because the CVE description does not mention an external trigger, the stated attack vector is an inference based on the code logic.