CVE-2026-23425

Summary

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.

Affected Software

Weaknesses

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bce3847f7c51b86332bf2e554c9e80ca3820f16c
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/858620655c1fbff05997e162fc7d83a3293d5142
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7e7c2cf0024d89443a7af52e09e47b1fe634ab17

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