CVE-2026-74517
CriticalCVSS 9.3Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk3th percentile - higher than 3% of all known CVEs
Summary
A vulnerability in the Linux kernel's KVM for x86 was found, involving delayed EOI (End of Interrupt) processing by the I/O APIC. If the delayed EOI work is processed after vCPUs are destroyed, a use-after-free (UAF) occurs, potentially leading to system crash or code execution.
Risk Assessment
The vulnerability can be exploited locally by a privileged guest user to cause a kernel crash (DoS) or privilege escalation on the host. Organizations using KVM virtualization are at risk of service disruption and integrity compromise.
Recommendation
Immediately update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix that cancels delayed EOI processing before vCPU destruction. Monitor vendor security advisories and apply relevant patches.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
See all- CVE-2026-43603Medium
A NULL pointer dereference in the Linux GPU driver could potentially lead to a kernel crash. This may result in a denial of service on the affected system.
- CVE-2026-99270Unknown
A use-after-free (UAF) vulnerability exists in the Linux kernel's reqsk_timer_handler() function. When TCP socket migration fails at inet_ehash_insert(), the code jumps to the no_ownership label and immediately frees the new reqsk via __reqsk_free() without stopping its timer, potentially leading to a UAF.
- CVE-2026-99269Unknown
In the Linux kernel sched_ext scheduler, a task can be found on a non-local DSQ while the CPU that dispatched it is still running ops.dequeue() and hasn't cleared SCX_OPSS_DISPATCHING. The DSQ consume and move paths don't wait for dispatch to finish and can operate on the task concurrently with the dispatcher. The fix adds scx_wait_dispatching() before operating on the task.
- CVE-2026-99268Unknown
In io_uring with IORING_SETUP_DEFER_TASKRUN, completions are queued as local work and only become CQEs when the submitter enters the kernel to wait for events. io_uring_poll() reports EPOLLIN if local work is pending, but only if the work exists at call time; after DEFER_TASKRUN was added, the ->poll_wq wakeup was replaced by directly waking the submitter, so poll() can sleep despite pending work. The fix wakes ->poll_wq when the first entry is put on the work list, using an RCU callback when needed.
- CVE-2026-99267Unknown
In io_uring NAPI with dynamic tracking, a NAPI id not seen for a minute should be dropped from the ring's busy-poll list. However, the timeout is computed incorrectly — SEC_CONVERSION is used instead of the number of jiffies per second, giving about eight years for HZ=1000 and overflowing on 32-bit systems. As a result, entries are never removed and every wait polls all historical ids.
- CVE-2026-99266Unknown
In io_uring zcrx, io_zcrx_queue_cqe() computes the buffer offset in its area from net_iov_idx(), which is an unsigned int, so the shift is done in 32 bits and only the result is widened to the u64 placed in the CQE. An area can be up to 1 TB, so for every niov beyond the first 4 GB the CQE points the application at a buffer 4 GB (or a multiple) below the correct one. The application reads wrong data and returns a buffer it doesn't own via the refill queue while the real one is never given back.
- CVE-2026-99265Unknown
In io_uring/openclose, io_pipe_fixed() installs both ends of the pipe in the fixed file table, drops ->uring_lock, and copies the slot numbers to the application. If that faults, it takes the lock again and removes whatever is in these slots. If the request is run by io-wq, the lock really is dropped and the slots are visible to others; by the time the error path gets to them, they may have been closed and reused (by IORING_OP_CLOSE, direct open/accept, or IORING_REGISTER_FILES_UPDATE), causing removal of a file unrelated to the failed request. The fix performs the copy with the lock held.
- CVE-2026-99264Unknown
A bug was fixed in the Linux kernel's io_uring/net handling of recv retries on uncommitted buffers. When a receive was retried after a partial transfer, the kernel could hand out buffer memory that the retried request was still writing to, causing data overwrites. The request is now completed with the bytes received instead of retried, and MSG_WAITALL is no longer honoured for incremental buffers or multi-buffer bundles.
- CVE-2026-99263Unknown
In io_uring/poll, if a wakeup sets IO_POLL_RETRY_FLAG between the owning task consuming the existing instance of IO_POLL_RETRY_FLAG and the loop check in io_poll_check_events(), request processing stalls until an unrelated wakeup arrives. The fix uses atomic_cmpxchg instead of atomic_sub_return to guarantee both the count v and poll_refs are 0 and no wakeups are missed.
- CVE-2026-99262Unknown
In io_uring/timeout, an IORING_OP_TIMEOUT run by io-wq due to IOSQE_ASYNC has the same problem as poll, futex, and waitid. io_wq_submit_work() checks IO_WQ_WORK_CANCEL only once before issuing the request; a cancel in between flags the work, gets -EALREADY, and searches ->timeout_list in vain while the worker adds the request and starts the timer. Nobody checks the flag again and the timeout runs its course, and at ring exit a task can get stuck for the full duration. The fix checks the flag under ->timeout_lock and fails the request if set.
Original NVD description (English source)
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: x86: Cancel delayed I/O APIC EOI handling before destroying vCPUs Cancel (and flush) the I/O APIC's delayed EOI handling work during the "pre VM destroy" phase, before vCPUs are destroyed, as processing the EOI broadcast will inject another IRQ if the line is asserted, i.e. will try to deliver an IRQ to the target vCPU(s). Canceling the work after vCPUs are destroyed leads to UAF if the delayed work is processed after vCPUs are destroyed. BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in __kvm_irq_delivery_to_apic_fast+0x9bf/0xa20 arch/x86/kvm/lapic.c:1250 Read of size 8 at addr ffff8880499abea0 by task kworker/1:2/1218 CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 1218 Comm: kworker/1:2 Not tainted 7.1.0-rc7 #5 PREEMPT(lazy) Hardware name: QEMU Ubuntu 25.10 PC v2 (i440FX + PIIX, + 10.1 machine, 1996), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2 04/01/2014 Workqueue: events kvm_ioapic_eoi_inject_work Call Trace: <TASK> __dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:94 dump_stack_lvl+0x100/0x190 lib/dump_stack.c:120 print_address_description mm/kasan/report.c:378 print_report+0x139/0x4ad mm/kasan/report.c:482 kasan_report+0xe4/0x1d0 mm/kasan/report.c:595 __kvm_irq_delivery_to_apic_fast+0x9bf/0xa20 arch/x86/kvm/lapic.c:1250 __kvm_irq_delivery_to_apic+0xd8/0xbf0 arch/x86/kvm/lapic.c:1345 kvm_irq_delivery_to_apic arch/x86/kvm/lapic.h:129 ioapic_service+0x308/0x590 arch/x86/kvm/ioapic.c:492 kvm_ioapic_eoi_inject_work+0x13c/0x190 arch/x86/kvm/ioapic.c:532 process_one_work+0xa59/0x19a0 kernel/workqueue.c:3314 process_scheduled_works kernel/workqueue.c:3397 worker_thread+0x5eb/0xe50 kernel/workqueue.c:3478 kthread+0x370/0x450 kernel/kthread.c:436 ret_from_fork+0x72b/0xd30 arch/x86/kernel/process.c:158 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:245 </TASK> Note, the VM is unreachable once kvm_destroy_vm() starts, and scheduling new work via kvm_ioapic_send_eoi() can only be done via KVM_RUN, i.e. requires a live vCPU. Alternatively, KVM could simply destroy the I/O APIC during the "pre" phase of VM destruction, but that gets more than a bit sketchy as KVM expects the I/O APIC to exist if ioapic_in_kernel() is true, and nested virtualization in particular has a bad habit of touching VM-scope state during vCPU destruction. E.g. attempting to free the PIC during the pre phase would lead to a NULL pointer dereference in kvm_cpu_has_extint(), and it's not hard to imagine the I/O APIC having a similar flaw.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS

