CVE-2026-52969: Linux Kernel

High severity, CVSS 7.8. EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: Reject wrapped offset in kvm_reset_dirty_gfn() kvm_reset_dirty_gfn() guards the gfn range with if (!memslot || (offset + __fls(mask)) >= memslot->npages) return; but offset is u64 and the addition is unchecked. The check can be silently bypassed by a u64 wrap. The dirty ring backing those entries is MAP_SHARED at KVM_DIRTY_LOG_PAGE_OFFSET of the vcpu fd, so the VMM can rewrite the slot and offset fields of any entry between when the kernel pushes them and when KVM_RESET_DIRTY_RINGS consumes them. On reset, kvm_dirty_ring_reset() re-reads the values via READ_ONCE() and feeds them straight back into this check; only the flags handshake is treated as the handover, the slot/offset payload is taken on trust. Crafting two entries entry[i].offset = 0xffffffffffffffc1 entry[i+1].offset = 0 makes the coalescing loop in kvm_dirty_ring_reset() compute delta = (s64)(0 - 0xffffffffffffffc1) = 63 which falls in [0, BITS_PER_LONG), so it folds entry[i+1] into the existing mask by setting bit 63. The trailing kvm_reset_dirty_gfn() call then sees offset = 0xffffffffffffffc1 and __fls(mask) = 63; the sum is 0 in u64 and the bounds check passes. That offset propagates into kvm_arch_mmu_enable_log_dirty_pt_masked() unchanged. On the legacy MMU path -- kvm_memslots_have_rmaps() == true, i.e. shadow paging, any VM that has allocated shadow roots, or a write-tracked slot -- it reaches gfn_to_rmap(), which indexes slot->arch.rmap[0][] with a near-U64_MAX gfn. That is an out-of-bounds load of a kvm_rmap_head, followed by a conditional clear of PT_WRITABLE_MASK in whatever the loaded pointer points at. The path is reachable from any process holding /dev/kvm. Range-check offset on its own first, so the addition cannot wrap. memslot->npages is bounded well below U64_MAX, so once offset < npages holds, offset + __fls(mask) (with __fls(mask) < BITS_PER_LONG) stays in range.

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: from 5.11, before 5.15.209 (fixed in 5.15.209); from 5.16, before 6.1.175 (fixed in 6.1.175); from 6.2, before 6.6.141 (fixed in 6.6.141); from 6.7, before 6.12.91 (fixed in 6.12.91); from 6.13, before 6.18.33 (fixed in 6.18.33); from 6.19, before 7.0.10 (fixed in 7.0.10); …

Published 2026-06-24. Last modified 2026-07-15.