Critical severity · published Aug 15, 2026
CVE-2026-74517
KVM: x86: Cancel delayed I/O APIC EOI handling before destroying vCPUs
9.3
CVSS
0.1%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
KVM: x86: Cancel delayed I/O APIC EOI handling before destroying vCPUs
Cancel (and flush) the I/O APIC's delayed EOI handling work during the
"pre VM destroy" phase, before vCPUs are destroyed, as processing the EOI
broadcast will inject another IRQ if the line is asserted, i.e. will try
to deliver an IRQ to the target vCPU(s). Canceling the work after vCPUs
are destroyed leads to UAF if the delayed work is processed after vCPUs are
destroyed.
BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in __kvm_irq_delivery_to_apic_fast+0x9bf/0xa20 arch/x86/kvm/lapic.c:1250
Read of size 8 at addr ffff8880499abea0 by task kworker/1:2/1218
CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 1218 Comm: kworker/1:2 Not tainted 7.1.0-rc7 #5 PREEMPT(lazy)
Hardware name: QEMU Ubuntu 25.10 PC v2 (i440FX + PIIX, + 10.1 machine, 1996), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2 04/01/2014
Workqueue: events kvm_ioapic_eoi_inject_work
Call Trace:
<TASK>
__dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:94
dump_stack_lvl+0x100/0x190 lib/dump_stack.c:120
print_address_description mm/kasan/report.c:378
print_report+0x139/0x4ad mm/kasan/report.c:482
kasan_report+0xe4/0x1d0 mm/kasan/report.c:595
__kvm_irq_delivery_to_apic_fast+0x9bf/0xa20 arch/x86/kvm/lapic.c:1250
__kvm_irq_delivery_to_apic+0xd8/0xbf0 arch/x86/kvm/lapic.c:1345
kvm_irq_delivery_to_apic arch/x86/kvm/lapic.h:129
ioapic_service+0x308/0x590 arch/x86/kvm/ioapic.c:492
kvm_ioapic_eoi_inject_work+0x13c/0x190 arch/x86/kvm/ioapic.c:532
process_one_work+0xa59/0x19a0 kernel/workqueue.c:3314
process_scheduled_works kernel/workqueue.c:3397
worker_thread+0x5eb/0xe50 kernel/workqueue.c:3478
kthread+0x370/0x450 kernel/kthread.c:436
ret_from_fork+0x72b/0xd30 arch/x86/kernel/process.c:158
ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:245
</TASK>
Note, the VM is unreachable once kvm_destroy_vm() starts, and scheduling
new work via kvm_ioapic_send_eoi() can only be done via KVM_RUN, i.e.
requires a live vCPU.
Alternatively, KVM could simply destroy the I/O APIC during the "pre" phase
of VM destruction, but that gets more than a bit sketchy as KVM expects the
I/O APIC to exist if ioapic_in_kernel() is true, and nested virtualization
in particular has a bad habit of touching VM-scope state during vCPU
destruction. E.g. attempting to free the PIC during the pre phase would
lead to a NULL pointer dereference in kvm_cpu_has_extint(), and it's not
hard to imagine the I/O APIC having a similar flaw.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Scope
Changed
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.1% · higher than 3% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
LI
Linux · Linux
c60f5156e62d0be6c53373b623f16a9e37e2208e before 69d040448067cebdd5598684db36ce7d8fb2f43e; 17bcd714426386fda741a4bccd96a2870179344b before 5f0a99ea721203a4063618aafcca32abf573cb96; 17bcd714426386fda741a4bccd96a2870179344b before ed56a6b58222f9c1f4115a0bd2788dd6ed6022e2; 17bcd714426386fda741a4bccd96a2870179344b before 9910e835580fef3bef53b70241dd00c4bffad693; 6.12.41 before 6.12.105; 6.14 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-74517
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-74517
git.kernel.org
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5f0a99ea721203a4063618aafcca32abf573cb96
git.kernel.org
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/69d040448067cebdd5598684db36ce7d8fb2f43e
git.kernel.org
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9910e835580fef3bef53b70241dd00c4bffad693
git.kernel.org
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ed56a6b58222f9c1f4115a0bd2788dd6ed6022e2
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