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Fencer Intel
high 7.8

CVE-2026-99018 json

riscv: entry: gate shadow call stack reload on sstatus.SPP, not tp

published 19d ago modified 18d ago also EUVD-2026-108812

cvss
7.8
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 7%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

riscv: entry: gate shadow call stack reload on sstatus.SPP, not tp

Under CONFIG_SHADOW_CALL_STACK, handle_exception() reloads the kernel shadow call stack pointer (gp) only when the trap came from userspace. It made that decision with scs_load_current_if_task_changed, which compares the trap-time tp (read back from sscratch into s5) against the current tp:

beq \prev, tp, _skip_scs scs_load_current _skip_scs:

tp is a user-writable register. A user task that sets tp to the linear-map address of its own task_struct (&current) before trapping makes the comparison succeed (can achieve by brute force with KASLR enable under our test), so the kernel skips scs_load_current and keeps running with the gp that userspace left in place. Under CONFIG_SHADOW_CALL_STACK gp is the shadow call stack pointer and load_global_pointer is a no-op, so the compiler-emitted "sd ra, -8(gp)" / "ld ra, -8(gp)" in every non-leaf function then write to, and return through, an attacker-controlled address -- an unprivileged kernel arbitrary-write and control-flow-hijack primitive. The poisoned gp is saved to task_struct.scs_sp on return, so the reload is skipped on every subsequent entry as well.

Decide "came from userspace" from the hardware sstatus.SPP bit (already in s1 at this point) instead of from tp, mirroring the check that ret_from_exception already uses a few instructions later. SPP is written by hardware on trap entry and cannot be forged from U-mode. Legitimate behaviour is unchanged: user entries (SPP=0) reload the task shadow call stack, nested kernel entries (SPP=1) skip it.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 7.3
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.113-1
  • linux Debian 14 7.2.11-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-99018

  • linux Ubuntu 26.10 7.3.0-10.10
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.10 7.3.0-1004.4
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 26.10 7.3.0-1004.4
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 26.10 7.3.0-1004.4
  • linux-riscv Ubuntu 26.10 7.3.0-10.10.1
  • linux-oracle Ubuntu 26.10 7.3.0-1004.4
  • linux-realtime Ubuntu 26.10 7.3.0-10.10.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-99018

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

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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-2026-99018 updated cvss 7.8

kernel: kernel: privilege escalation via improper shadow call stack pointer reload on RISC-V

  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • 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 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
    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

0.18% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 7% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

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