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Fencer Intel
medium 5.5

CVE-2024-55881 json

KVM: x86: Play nice with protected guests in complete_hypercall_exit()

published last yr. modified 6d ago also EUVD-2024-52839

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 11%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

KVM: x86: Play nice with protected guests in complete_hypercall_exit()

Use is_64_bit_hypercall() instead of is_64_bit_mode() to detect a 64-bit hypercall when completing said hypercall. For guests with protected state, e.g. SEV-ES and SEV-SNP, KVM must assume the hypercall was made in 64-bit mode as the vCPU state needed to detect 64-bit mode is unavailable.

Hacking the sev_smoke_test selftest to generate a KVM_HC_MAP_GPA_RANGE hypercall via VMGEXIT trips the WARN:

------------[ cut here ]------------ WARNING: CPU: 273 PID: 326626 at arch/x86/kvm/x86.h:180 complete_hypercall_exit+0x44/0xe0 [kvm] Modules linked in: kvm_amd kvm ... [last unloaded: kvm] CPU: 273 UID: 0 PID: 326626 Comm: sev_smoke_test Not tainted 6.12.0-smp--392e932fa0f3-feat #470 Hardware name: Google Astoria/astoria, BIOS 0.20240617.0-0 06/17/2024 RIP: 0010:complete_hypercall_exit+0x44/0xe0 [kvm] Call Trace: <TASK> kvm_arch_vcpu_ioctl_run+0x2400/0x2720 [kvm] kvm_vcpu_ioctl+0x54f/0x630 [kvm] __se_sys_ioctl+0x6b/0xc0 do_syscall_64+0x83/0x160 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e </TASK> ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.15.176, 6.1.122, 6.6.68, 6.12.7, 6.13
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.123-1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.12.8-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2024-55881

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-135.146
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-60.63
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1080.87
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1029.31
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1079.88
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1030.32
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1077.83
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1025.29

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2024-55881

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-rt Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-25.1
  • kernel-source-rt Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-25.1
  • kernel-livepatch-MICRO-6-0-RT_Update_5 Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 1-1.1
  • kernel-source Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-25.1
  • kernel-default Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-25.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-25.1
  • kernel-default-base Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-24.1.21.4
  • kernel-livepatch-MICRO-6-0_Update_5 Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 1-1.2

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:20166-1SUSE-SU-2025:20249-1SUSE-SU-2025:20165-1SUSE-SU-2025:20248-1SUSE-SU-2025:0557-1SUSE-SU-2025:0499-1

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2024-55881 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: KVM: x86: Play nice with protected guests in complete_hypercall_exit()

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
6d ago

Exploit prediction

0.21% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 11% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.