High severity · published Sep 18, 2026
CVE-2026-81627
Qemu-kvm: vapic writable rom alias can escape the option-rom window and expose locked smram
8.2
CVSS
0.2%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
A flaw was found in QEMU. The VAPIC setup hypercall in hw/i386/vapic.c does not validate that the writable RAM alias remains within the option ROM window. A privileged guest user on a Q35/KVM machine can position this alias over locked SMRAM, bypassing chipset D_LCK protection and injecting code into System Management Mode memory.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
High
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Scope
Changed
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.2% · higher than 9% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
RH
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: vendor
RH
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: vendor
RH
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: vendor
RH
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: vendor
RH
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for NVIDIA 26 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: vendor
RH
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: vendor
RH
Red Hat OpenStack Platform 13 (Queens) · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-81627
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-81627
access.redhat.com
https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-81627
bugzilla.redhat.com
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2536950
gitlab.com
https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/work_items/4206
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