The Dirty Pipe vulnerability allowed any user to temporarily overwrite any file in the filesystem without requiring write permissions, but this was limited to the in-memory page cache and would revert if the kernel was under memory pressure. The vulnerability could have been exploited to escalate privileges and access sensitive files, including those used by popular shells like `/bin/sh`. However, Replit's containerization setup and the use of Linux kernel patches mitigated the impact of the vulnerability, preventing successful exploitation. Despite this, the vulnerability highlighted the importance of defense in depth and the need for swift patching to protect against similar threats.