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CVE-2026-97997 json

virtio_ring: fix stale descriptor flags after a failed packed add

published last mo. modified 21d ago also EUVD-2026-86651

cvss
—
not scored
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 6%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

virtio_ring: fix stale descriptor flags after a failed packed add

In a packed ring the AVAIL and USED bits sit in the descriptor itself, so writing them makes that descriptor available. Those bit combinations flip meaning on every round of the ring, tracked by a wrap counter, so invalidating or validating a descriptor means inverting both bits.

Commit 1ce9e6055fa0 ("virtio_ring: introduce packed ring support") has virtqueue_add_packed() make every descriptor of a chain available as it maps the chain, and write the head last. The device consumes the ring in order and stops at a head that is not available yet, so it never reaches the rest.

When vring_map_one_sg() fails partway, unmap_release unmaps the segments and restores avail_used_flags, but the descriptors it wrote to in the ring stay marked with AVAIL and USED bits. The head is now the only entry that keeps the device from consuming these stale entries.

For example, the ring would look like this now.

Z - pre-previous command A - previous command B - aborted command C - current command

[A1 DONE] [A2 DONE] <C1 EMPTY> [B2] [B3] [Z1 DONE]

When the driver now attempts to issue the C command, the next add starts at the same head as B. If C spans less descriptors than B, there is no end marker because AVAIL and USED bits were still in place. And that means the device will start interpreting these stale entries (B2/B3) as another command entry, which then blocks the queue.

This effect typically happens in swiotlb configurations under memory pressure, because vring_map_one_sg() can then fail with larger I/O requests which then leads to command abortions.

There are broadly 2 ways to avoid leaving those flags behind:

1) Defer those flags too until the chain is complete. 2) Rewrite those flags for the previous wrap counter.

Implement the second option in both packed add paths. The first option traverses the chain a second time on every successful add. The second option invalidates all added descriptors when any add fails.

With this patch applied, a packed virtqueue keeps completing requests after a failed add.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.6.160, 6.12.114, 6.18.57, 7.2.7, 7.3
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.115-2
  • linux Debian 14 7.2.7-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-97997

  • linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1016.17
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1016.18
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1017.17
  • linux-riscv Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42.1
  • linux-oracle Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1015.16
  • linux-hwe-7.0 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42~24.04.1
  • linux-oem-7.0 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1017.17

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-97997

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-source openSUSE Tumbleweed 7.2.9-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:12074-1

  • kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.161.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-104181

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-2026-97997 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: virtio_ring: fix stale descriptor flags after a failed packed add

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • 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 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8, openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 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

Exploit prediction

0.17% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 6% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

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