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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2022-48763 json

KVM: x86: Forcibly leave nested virt when SMM state is toggled

published 2024-06-20 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2022-53642

cvss
5.5
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 12%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

KVM: x86: Forcibly leave nested virt when SMM state is toggled

Forcibly leave nested virtualization operation if userspace toggles SMM state via KVM_SET_VCPU_EVENTS or KVM_SYNC_X86_EVENTS. If userspace forces the vCPU out of SMM while it's post-VMXON and then injects an SMI, vmx_enter_smm() will overwrite vmx->nested.smm.vmxon and end up with both vmxon=false and smm.vmxon=false, but all other nVMX state allocated.

Don't attempt to gracefully handle the transition as (a) most transitions are nonsencial, e.g. forcing SMM while L2 is running, (b) there isn't sufficient information to handle all transitions, e.g. SVM wants access to the SMRAM save state, and (c) KVM_SET_VCPU_EVENTS must precede KVM_SET_NESTED_STATE during state restore as the latter disallows putting the vCPU into L2 if SMM is active, and disallows tagging the vCPU as being post-VMXON in SMM if SMM is not active.

Abuse of KVM_SET_VCPU_EVENTS manifests as a WARN and memory leak in nVMX due to failure to free vmcs01's shadow VMCS, but the bug goes far beyond just a memory leak, e.g. toggling SMM on while L2 is active puts the vCPU in an architecturally impossible state.

WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 3606 at free_loaded_vmcs arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c:2665 [inline] WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 3606 at free_loaded_vmcs+0x158/0x1a0 arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c:2656 Modules linked in: CPU: 1 PID: 3606 Comm: syz-executor725 Not tainted 5.17.0-rc1-syzkaller #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 01/01/2011 RIP: 0010:free_loaded_vmcs arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c:2665 [inline] RIP: 0010:free_loaded_vmcs+0x158/0x1a0 arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c:2656 Code: <0f> 0b eb b3 e8 8f 4d 9f 00 e9 f7 fe ff ff 48 89 df e8 92 4d 9f 00 Call Trace: <TASK> kvm_arch_vcpu_destroy+0x72/0x2f0 arch/x86/kvm/x86.c:11123 kvm_vcpu_destroy arch/x86/kvm/../../../virt/kvm/kvm_main.c:441 [inline] kvm_destroy_vcpus+0x11f/0x290 arch/x86/kvm/../../../virt/kvm/kvm_main.c:460 kvm_free_vcpus arch/x86/kvm/x86.c:11564 [inline] kvm_arch_destroy_vm+0x2e8/0x470 arch/x86/kvm/x86.c:11676 kvm_destroy_vm arch/x86/kvm/../../../virt/kvm/kvm_main.c:1217 [inline] kvm_put_kvm+0x4fa/0xb00 arch/x86/kvm/../../../virt/kvm/kvm_main.c:1250 kvm_vm_release+0x3f/0x50 arch/x86/kvm/../../../virt/kvm/kvm_main.c:1273 __fput+0x286/0x9f0 fs/file_table.c:311 task_work_run+0xdd/0x1a0 kernel/task_work.c:164 exit_task_work include/linux/task_work.h:32 [inline] do_exit+0xb29/0x2a30 kernel/exit.c:806 do_group_exit+0xd2/0x2f0 kernel/exit.c:935 get_signal+0x4b0/0x28c0 kernel/signal.c:2862 arch_do_signal_or_restart+0x2a9/0x1c40 arch/x86/kernel/signal.c:868 handle_signal_work kernel/entry/common.c:148 [inline] exit_to_user_mode_loop kernel/entry/common.c:172 [inline] exit_to_user_mode_prepare+0x17d/0x290 kernel/entry/common.c:207 __syscall_exit_to_user_mode_work kernel/entry/common.c:289 [inline] syscall_exit_to_user_mode+0x19/0x60 kernel/entry/common.c:300 do_syscall_64+0x42/0xb0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:86 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae </TASK>

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.10.97, 5.15.19, 5.16.5, 5.17
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.16.7-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2022-48763

  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.73.1
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.73.1
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.73.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.73.1
  • kernel-source SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP5, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.73.1
  • kernel-default SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP5, SLE Module for Legacy 15 SP5, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5 +5 more 5.14.21-150500.55.73.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.73.1
  • kernel-zfcpdump SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.73.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2024:2939-1SUSE-SU-2024:2929-1SUSE-SU-2024:2902-1SUSE-SU-2024:2394-1SUSE-SU-2024:2372-1

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-2022-48763 updated cvss 4.1

kernel: KVM: x86: Forcibly leave nested virt when SMM state is toggled

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    affected: no fix available
  • 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
    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

0.22% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 12% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-401 Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime
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.