high 8.8

CVE-2026-31588 json

KVM: x86: Use scratch field in MMIO fragment to hold small write values

published 2026-04-24 6mo ago modified 2026-10-19 21d ago also EUVD-2026-25481

cvss: 8.8; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.2%; EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 9%
public exploits: 0; none known

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

When exiting to userspace to service an emulated MMIO write, copy the to-be-written value to a scratch field in the MMIO fragment if the size of the data payload is 8 bytes or less, i.e. can fit in a single chunk, instead of pointing the fragment directly at the source value.

This fixes a class of use-after-free bugs that occur when the emulator initiates a write using an on-stack, local variable as the source, the write splits a page boundary, *and* both pages are MMIO pages. Because KVM's ABI only allows for physically contiguous MMIO requests, accesses that split MMIO pages are separated into two fragments, and are sent to userspace one at a time. When KVM attempts to complete userspace MMIO in response to KVM_RUN after the first fragment, KVM will detect the second fragment and generate a second userspace exit, and reference the on-stack variable.

The issue is most visible if the second KVM_RUN is performed by a separate task, in which case the stack of the initiating task can show up as truly freed data.

================================================================== BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in complete_emulated_mmio+0x305/0x420 Read of size 1 at addr ffff888009c378d1 by task syz-executor417/984

CPU: 1 PID: 984 Comm: syz-executor417 Not tainted 5.10.0-182.0.0.95.h2627.eulerosv2r13.x86_64 #3 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.15.0-0-g2dd4b9b3f840-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 Call Trace: dump_stack+0xbe/0xfd print_address_description.constprop.0+0x19/0x170 __kasan_report.cold+0x6c/0x84 kasan_report+0x3a/0x50 check_memory_region+0xfd/0x1f0 memcpy+0x20/0x60 complete_emulated_mmio+0x305/0x420 kvm_arch_vcpu_ioctl_run+0x63f/0x6d0 kvm_vcpu_ioctl+0x413/0xb20 __se_sys_ioctl+0x111/0x160 do_syscall_64+0x30/0x40 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x67/0xd1 RIP: 0033:0x42477d Code: <48> 3d 01 f0 ff ff 73 01 c3 48 c7 c1 b0 ff ff ff f7 d8 64 89 01 48 RSP: 002b:00007faa8e6890e8 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000010 RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00000000004d7338 RCX: 000000000042477d RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 000000000000ae80 RDI: 0000000000000005 RBP: 00000000004d7330 R08: 00007fff28d546df R09: 0000000000000000 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 00000000004d733c R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 000000000040a200 R15: 00007fff28d54720

The buggy address belongs to the page: page:0000000029f6a428 refcount:0 mapcount:0 mapping:0000000000000000 index:0x0 pfn:0x9c37 flags: 0xfffffc0000000(node=0|zone=1|lastcpupid=0x1fffff) raw: 000fffffc0000000 0000000000000000 ffffea0000270dc8 0000000000000000 raw: 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 00000000ffffffff 0000000000000000 page dumped because: kasan: bad access detected

Memory state around the buggy address: ffff888009c37780: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ffff888009c37800: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff >ffff888009c37880: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ^ ffff888009c37900: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ffff888009c37980: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ==================================================================

The bug can also be reproduced with a targeted KVM-Unit-Test by hacking KVM to fill a large on-stack variable in complete_emulated_mmio(), i.e. by overwrite the data value with garbage.

Limit the use of the scratch fields to 8-byte or smaller accesses, and to just writes, as larger accesses and reads are not affected thanks to implementation details in the emulator, but add a sanity check to ensure those details don't change in the future. Specifically, KVM never uses on-stack variables for accesses larger that 8 bytes, e.g. uses an operand in the emulator context, and *al ---truncated---

Patch / fix

fixed in 1 distros 5 links 9

Linux Linux 5.10.258, 5.15.209, 6.1.175, 6.6.136, 6.12.83, 6.18.24, 6.19.14, 7.0.1, 7.1

debian ubuntu suse opensuse azure linux

linux Debian 12 6.1.176-1
linux Debian 13 6.12.85-1
linux Debian 14 6.19.14-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-31588

linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-186.196
linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-136.136
linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-27.27
linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1112.119
linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1061.64
linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1008.8
linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1112.122
linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1064.72

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-31588

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-default SLES for SAP 15 SP6, SLES 15 SP6-LTSS, SLE Live Patching 15 SP6 +1 more 6.4.0-150600.23.112.1
kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.55.1
kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.55.1
kernel-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.55.1
kernel-source SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.55.1
kernel-default SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP7, SLE Module for Legacy 15 SP7, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 +2 more 6.4.0-150700.53.55.1
kernel-zfcpdump SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.55.1
kernel-obs-build SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.55.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:2195-1 SUSE-SU-2026:2238-1 SUSE-SU-2026:2450-1 SUSE-SU-2026:21834-1

kernel-source openSUSE Tumbleweed 7.0.3-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:10703-1

kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.137.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-83846

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

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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-2026-31588 updated 2026-11-07 cvss 6.5

kernel: KVM: x86: Use scratch field in MMIO fragment to hold small write values

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 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
not affected: vulnerable code not present

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: total
Assessed: 24d ago (2026-10-16)

Exploit prediction

0.19% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 9% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	3.1	8.8	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness

CWE-416 Use After Free

Technology feeds

Linux kernel rss critical rss

References

Sources

CVE List CVE-2026-31588
NVD CVE-2026-31588

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