PT-2026-55697 · Linux · Linux

Published

2026-07-04

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Updated

2026-07-04

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CVE-2026-53359

None

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In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
KVM: x86: Fix shadow paging use-after-free due to unexpected role
Commit 0cb2af2ea66ad ("KVM: x86: Fix shadow paging use-after-free due to unexpected GFN") fixed a shadow paging mismatch between stored and computed GFNs; the bug could be triggered by changing a PDE mapping from outside the guest, and then deleting a memslot. The rmap remove() call would miss entries created after the PDE change because the GFN of the leaf SPTE does not match the GFN of the struct kvm mmu page.
A similar hole however remains if the modified PDE points to a non-leaf page. In this case the gfn can be made to match, but the role does not match: the original large 2MB page creates a kvm mmu page with direct=1, while the new 4KB needs a kvm mmu page with direct=0. However, kvm mmu get child sp() does not compare the role, and therefore reuses the page.
The next step is installing a leaf (4KB) SPTE on the new path which records an rmap entry under the gfn resolved by the walk. But when that child is zapped its parent kvm mmu page has direct=1 and kvm mmu page get gfn() computes the gfn for the 4KB page as sp->gfn + index instead of using sp->shadowed translation[] (or sp->gfns[] in older kernels). It therefore fails to remove the recorded entry.
When the memslot is dropped the shadow page is freed but the rmap entry survives, as in the scenario that was already fixed. Code that later walks that gfn (dirty logging, MMU notifier invalidation, and so on) dereferences an sptep that lies in the freed page, causing the use-after-free.
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Related Identifiers

CVE-2026-53359

Affected Products

Linux