Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
high 7.1

CVE-2021-47255 json

kvm: LAPIC: Restore guard to prevent illegal APIC register access

published 2024-05-21 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-33903

cvss
7.1
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 15%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

kvm: LAPIC: Restore guard to prevent illegal APIC register access

Per the SDM, "any access that touches bytes 4 through 15 of an APIC register may cause undefined behavior and must not be executed." Worse, such an access in kvm_lapic_reg_read can result in a leak of kernel stack contents. Prior to commit 01402cf81051 ("kvm: LAPIC: write down valid APIC registers"), such an access was explicitly disallowed. Restore the guard that was removed in that commit.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.4.128, 5.10.46, 5.12.13, 5.13
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.10.46-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47255

  • linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-81.91
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1055.58
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1051.55
  • linux-kvm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1045.47
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1056.58
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1022.23
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1042.46
  • linux-oracle Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1053.57

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2021-47255

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-rt SLE Micro 5.2, SLE Micro 5.1 5.3.18-150300.211.1
  • kernel-source-rt SLE Micro 5.2, SLE Micro 5.1 5.3.18-150300.211.1
  • kernel-64kb SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS, Enterprise Storage 7.1 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.2 +5 more 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1
  • kernel-preempt SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:01995-1SUSE-SU-2024:2185-1SUSE-SU-2024:2183-1SUSE-SU-2024:2010-1

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-2021-47255 updated cvss 6.1

kernel: kvm: LAPIC: Restore guard to prevent illegal APIC register access

  • 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, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more
    affected: no fix available
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 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

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.24% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 15% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

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.