Linux Kernel up to 7.2.6/7.3-rc2 vhost vhost_clear_device_iotlb memory corruption

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 7.2.6/7.3-rc2. It has been declared as very critical. Affected by this vulnerability is the function vhost_clear_device_iotlb of the component vhost. Such manipulation leads to memory corruption. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2026-97988. The attack may be launched remotely. There is no exploit available. It is recommended to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 7.2.6/7.3-rc2 and classified as very critical. Affected by this issue is the function vhost_clear_device_iotlb of the component vhost. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory corruption vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-119. The product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it can read from or write to a memory location that is outside of the intended boundary of the buffer. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: vhost: invalidate vring access on IOTLB transitions When VIRTIO_F_ACCESS_PLATFORM changes, cached vring pointers and IOTLB metadata are interpreted in a different address space. Keeping them across the transition can leave stale ring mappings in use. Clearing d->iotlb before taking the VQ locks also lets a worker observe a transient NULL d->iotlb and fall back to d->umem while translating a descriptor. Add a common vhost_clear_device_iotlb() helper for vhost-net and vhost-vsock. Take all VQ mutexes in index order before dropping the device-wide IOTLB, invalidate each VQ's cached ring access and metadata, clear pending IOTLB messages, and free the old table after the handoff. This serializes the transition with workers and prevents mixed address space mappings. On the first direct-to-IOTLB transition, invalidate the cached vring addresses. When an existing device IOTLB is replaced, preserve the GIOVA ring addresses and reset only the metadata cache. After clearing ACCESS_PLATFORM, userspace must configure the vring addresses for the new address mode. vhost_vq_invalidate_access() clears desc, avail, and used together. Treat the VQ as invalidated only when all three are NULL, since a single GIOVA address may legitimately be zero.

The advisory is available at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is handled as CVE-2026-97988 since 09/25/2026. The exploitation is known to be easy. The attack may be launched remotely. Technical details are known, but there is no available exploit. The structure of the vulnerability defines a possible price range of USD $5k-$25k at the moment (estimation calculated on 09/25/2026).

Upgrading to version 7.2.7 or 7.3-rc3 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 4a454af8e56c1596ada1421ae5eba90c8896c7c7/e4f4761879a230aa59e569102a6ab9851847d833 is able to eliminate this problem. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

If you want to get best quality of vulnerability data, you may have to visit VulDB.

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 7.2.0
• 7.2.1
• 7.2.2
• 7.2.3
• 7.2.4
• 7.2.5
• 7.2.6
• 7.3-rc1
• 7.3-rc2

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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