CVE-2026-98718 PUBLISHED

KVM: SEV: Do cache maintenance on the source VM *before* clearing SEV state

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 25.09.2026 Published: 18.10.2026 Updated: 18.10.2026

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

KVM: SEV: Do cache maintenance on the source VM before clearing SEV state

Explicitly flush caches after intra-host migration before clearing "SEV active" on the source VM, as doing cache maintenance afterwards creates a tiny window where memory reclaim could return memory to the host without performing a cache flush, e.g. as pointed out by Sashiko:

CPU1 in sev_migrate_from(): src->active = false;

CPU2 running concurrent unmap: Since active is false, the automatic cache flush in sev_guest_memory_reclaimed is skipped. The host frees and reallocates the page.

CPU1 in sev_migrate_from(): sev_writeback_caches(src_kvm); Executes a hardware cache flush (wbnoinvd), which writes the guest's old dirty ciphertext over the new page owner's data.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 37dfb676fafd1eef36fe0bb649607afbb0d5521b to 8b7d4f68fef96cebe0b6dbb6e5607772337f7369 (excl.)
  • affected from d4cc2dff12116a700add601c0262132cc26e1b2c to de83ff6a4d8f3618473bedb3c4400020c22e8a8a (excl.)
  • affected from 93de2a6a4b91b72607136dd656edf03fb399d27f to 973ea70393e885e540f714904e51bc6cac80e3d7 (excl.)
  • affected from 6.18.55 to 6.18.56 (excl.)
  • affected from 7.2.9 to 7.2.10 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 7.3-rc5 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 7.3-rc5 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.56 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.10 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc6 to * (incl.)

References