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Fencer Vulns
high 8.8

CVE-2021-4093 json

A flaw was found in the KVM's AMD code for supporting the Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Encrypted State (SEV-ES).

published 2022-02-18 4 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-33979

cvss
8.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 36%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

A flaw was found in the KVM's AMD code for supporting the Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Encrypted State (SEV-ES). A KVM guest using SEV-ES can trigger out-of-bounds reads and writes in the host kernel via a malicious VMGEXIT for a string I/O instruction (for example, outs or ins) using the exit reason SVM_EXIT_IOIO. This issue results in a crash of the entire system or a potential guest-to-host escape scenario.

Patch / fix

  • linux linux_kernel 5.14.16
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.14.16-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-4093

  • linux-aws-5.11 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.11.0-1028.31~20.04.1
  • linux-aws-5.13 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.13.0-1012.13~20.04.1
  • linux-gcp-5.11 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.11.0-1029.33~20.04.3
  • linux-gcp-5.13 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.13.0-1013.16~20.04.1
  • linux-hwe-5.13 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.13.0-28.31~20.04.1
  • linux-oem-5.13 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.13.0-1029.36
  • linux-oem-5.14 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.14.0-1008.8
  • linux-azure-5.11 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.11.0-1028.31~20.04.2

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2021-4093

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel RHEL 8 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8
  • perf RHEL 8 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8
  • bpftool RHEL 8 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8
  • kernel-core RHEL 8 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8
  • kernel-tools RHEL 8 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8
  • python3-perf RHEL 8 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8
  • kernel-modules RHEL 8 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8
  • kernel-zfcpdump RHEL 8 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8

red hat advisories RHSA-2022:1988RHSA-2022:1975

  • kernel Rocky Linux 8 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8

rocky linux advisories RLSA-2022:1988

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2021-4093 updated cvss 8.2

kernel: KVM: SVM: out-of-bounds read/write in sev_es_string_io

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 8) perf 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8, kernel 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8, bpftool 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8, kernel-core 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8, kernel-tools 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8, python3-perf 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8, +15 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux CRB (v. 8) kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8, kernel-debuginfo-common-aarch64 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8, kernel-debuginfo-common-ppc64le 4.18.0-372.9.1.el8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2022:1988
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux NFV (v. 8) kernel-rt 4.18.0-372.9.1.rt7.166.el8, kernel-rt-kvm 4.18.0-372.9.1.rt7.166.el8, kernel-rt-core 4.18.0-372.9.1.rt7.166.el8, kernel-rt-modules 4.18.0-372.9.1.rt7.166.el8, kernel-rt-debug-kvm 4.18.0-372.9.1.rt7.166.el8, kernel-rt-debug-core 4.18.0-372.9.1.rt7.166.el8, +4 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux RT (v. 8) kernel-rt 4.18.0-372.9.1.rt7.166.el8, kernel-rt-core 4.18.0-372.9.1.rt7.166.el8, kernel-rt-modules 4.18.0-372.9.1.rt7.166.el8, kernel-rt-debug-core 4.18.0-372.9.1.rt7.166.el8, kernel-rt-debug-modules 4.18.0-372.9.1.rt7.166.el8, kernel-rt-modules-extra 4.18.0-372.9.1.rt7.166.el8, +2 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2022:1975
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-alt, python-perf, +9 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +82 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.42% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 36% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • bugs.chromium.org https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/detail?id=2222 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 8.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.2 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Affected products

  • n/a kernel

Classification

Weakness
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.