Red Hat Enterprise Linux VAPIC hw/i386/vapic.c privileges management

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability marked as very critical has been reported in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, OpenShift Container Platform and OpenStack Platform. Impacted is an unknown function of the file hw/i386/vapic.c of the component VAPIC. This manipulation causes privileges management. This vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2026-81627. The attack is restricted to local execution. No exploit exists.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as very critical was found in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, OpenShift Container Platform and OpenStack Platform (the affected version is unknown). Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown code of the file hw/i386/vapic.c of the component VAPIC. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a privileges management vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-269. The product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

A flaw was found in QEMU. The VAPIC setup hypercall in hw/i386/vapic.c does not validate that the writable RAM alias remains within the option ROM window. A privileged guest user on a Q35/KVM machine can position this alias over locked SMRAM, bypassing chipset D_LCK protection and injecting code into System Management Mode memory.

It is possible to read the advisory at access.redhat.com. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2026-81627 since 08/27/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. Attacking locally is a requirement. Additional levels of successful authentication are required for exploitation. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $5k-$25k at the moment (estimation calculated on 09/18/2026). The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1068 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

There is no information about possible countermeasures known. It may be suggested to replace the affected object with an alternative product.

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Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Red Hat

Name

• Enterprise Linux
• OpenShift Container Platform
• OpenStack Platform

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.redhat.com/

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