Reading files under /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities results in a kernel panic on i386 kernel

Issue

• After updating from 2.6.18-437.el5 to 2.6.18-438.el5 (i686) kernel panics occur sporadically.
• Backtrace looks like following snippet.

BUG: unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address ab6faf33
 printing eip:
c040f54f
*pde = 00000000
Oops: 0000 [#1]
SMP 
last sysfs file: /devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v1
Modules linked in: autofs4 hidp rfcomm l2cap bluetooth lockd ....
CPU:    0
EIP:    0060:[<c040f54f>]    Not tainted VLI
EFLAGS: 00010292   (2.6.18-438.el5 #1) 
EIP is at cpu_show_spectre_v1+0x1/0x25
eax: c06bf600   ebx: f5ace000   ecx: c040f54e   edx: f5ace000
esi: c06bf628   edi: c06bf628   ebp: f5975cbf   esp: f5eeff50
ds: 007b   es: 007b   ss: 0068
Process cat (pid: 2961, ti=f5eef000 task=f77e6c70 task.ti=f5eef000)
Stack: c056769c c0567680 f7c8cf04 c04b53fd 00001000 086da000 c06bf6c0 f7540cc0 
       f5975cd4 f7540cc0 c04b537f 086da000 00001000 c047a608 f5eeffa4 f7540cc0 
       fffffff7 086da000 f5eef000 c047aaba f5eeffa4 00000000 00000000 00000000 
Call Trace:
 [<c056769c>] sysdev_class_show+0x1c/0x1f
 [<c0567680>] sysdev_class_show+0x0/0x1f
 [<c04b53fd>] sysfs_read_file+0x7e/0x11e
 [<c04b537f>] sysfs_read_file+0x0/0x11e
 [<c047a608>] vfs_read+0xa6/0x148
 [<c047aaba>] sys_read+0x3c/0x63
 [<c0404fd2>] syscall_call+0x1e/0x22
 [<c062007b>] xfrm_get_byname+0x35/0x98
 =======================
Code: eb 11 a1 84 7f 71 c0 a9 00 00 04 00 74 0e 68 28 9b 64 c0 51 e8 bc 94 0e 00 5a 59 c3 68 39 9b 64 c0 51 e8 ae 94 0e 00 5a 59 c3 4d <69> 74 69 67 61 74 69 6f 6e 3a 20 4c 6f 61 64 20 66 65 6e 63 65 
EIP: [<c040f54f>] cpu_show_spectre_v1+0x1/0x25 SS:ESP 0068:f5eeff50