CVE-2026-64561
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: x86: Check for invalid/obsolete root *after* making MMU pages available Check for a "stale" page fault, i.e. for an invalid and/or obsolete root, after making MMU pages available for the shadow MMU. If reclaiming shadow pages zaps an in-use root, i.e. marks it invalid, then KVM will attempt to map memory into an invalid root. On its own, populating an invalid root is "fine", but because child shadow pages inherit their parent's role, any children created during the map/fetch will be created as invalid pages, thus violating KVM's invariant that invalid pages are never on the list of active MMU pages. Note, the underlying flaw has existed since KVM first started tracking invalid roots in 2008 (commit 2e53d63acba7, "KVM: MMU: ignore zapped root pagetables"), but the true badness only came along in 2020 (Linux 5.9) with the invariant that invalid shadow pages can't be on the list of active pages. Note #2, inheriting role.invalid when creating child shadow pages is also far from ideal; that flaw will be addressed separately.
What this means for your business
- An attacker can use it only with access to the machine itself, with an ordinary user login, and without anyone at your company clicking anything.
- FIRST's prediction model gives it a 0.2% chance of attack attempts being seen in the next 30 days, ranking above 6% of all known flaws.
What to do
- 1Ask your IT team or provider whether any of your systems use the affected product.
- 2If you do, follow the vendor's guidance. No patch reference has been published yet.
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Scoring
- CVSS
- 8.8 (v3.1)
- Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H- Assigned by
- 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
Dates
- Published
- 2026-08-04
- Last modified
- 2026-08-27
- Sources
- NVD
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0026dbb7de8ea76e97d6edf42fc3cc084564e2bf
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2abd5287f08319fa35764566b15c6e22cb1068db
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/35e77467610c4a37cb0ff54ee56b85f73b1f5700
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/62ef67af1878fa2cd066642f2f59e33ade95f637
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/65c4f7a1028cf01a93a2762d679c289810ede990
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bce0d3c26e2c761a4bf43c8949f333fc7374eb2d
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f3477a6a4164f15287444eda685b5f6405dbd1e5
- https://github.com/V4bel/Zapscape