Definitely agree with the other posters, it is either something else besides rust or there is something wrong.
My mother and family friend retired and moved to Cozumel, Mexico a few years ago and have a diving and deep sea fishing business. I bought my mom a dragonfly salt and the family friend a pacific salt about a year and half ago and brought them down for them. Visited last month on vacation and they both carry their knives everyday in town, on the boat fishing, and diving and swimming, pretty much exposed to moisture and salt water daily. I inspected both knives and there is absolutely zero rust on the blades, hardware and liners.
There is some oxidation on the engraving on the blade but from what I've read, that's actually material left over from the tooling and not the actual H1 steel rusting.