CVE-2026-23425 PUBLISHED

KVM: arm64: Fix ID register initialization for non-protected pKVM guests

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 13.01.2026 Published: 03.04.2026 Updated: 03.04.2026

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

KVM: arm64: Fix ID register initialization for non-protected pKVM guests

In protected mode, the hypervisor maintains a separate instance of the kvm structure for each VM. For non-protected VMs, this structure is initialized from the host's kvm state.

Currently, pkvm_init_features_from_host() copies the KVM_ARCH_FLAG_ID_REGS_INITIALIZED flag from the host without the underlying id_regs data being initialized. This results in the hypervisor seeing the flag as set while the ID registers remain zeroed.

Consequently, kvm_has_feat() checks at EL2 fail (return 0) for non-protected VMs. This breaks logic that relies on feature detection, such as ctxt_has_tcrx() for TCR2_EL1 support. As a result, certain system registers (e.g., TCR2_EL1, PIR_EL1, POR_EL1) are not saved/restored during the world switch, which could lead to state corruption.

Fix this by explicitly copying the ID registers from the host kvm to the hypervisor kvm for non-protected VMs during initialization, since we trust the host with its non-protected guests' features. Also ensure KVM_ARCH_FLAG_ID_REGS_INITIALIZED is cleared initially in pkvm_init_features_from_host so that vm_copy_id_regs can properly initialize them and set the flag once done.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 41d6028e28bd474298ff10409c292ec46cf43a90 to bce3847f7c51b86332bf2e554c9e80ca3820f16c (excl.)
  • affected from 41d6028e28bd474298ff10409c292ec46cf43a90 to 858620655c1fbff05997e162fc7d83a3293d5142 (excl.)
  • affected from 41d6028e28bd474298ff10409c292ec46cf43a90 to 7e7c2cf0024d89443a7af52e09e47b1fe634ab17 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 6.14 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 6.14 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.17 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.19.7 to 6.19.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.0-rc2 to * (incl.)

References