Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2024-53196 json

KVM: arm64: Don't retire aborted MMIO instruction

published 2024-12-27 22 mo ago modified 2026-11-05 3 d ago also EUVD-2024-51868

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 13%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

KVM: arm64: Don't retire aborted MMIO instruction

Returning an abort to the guest for an unsupported MMIO access is a documented feature of the KVM UAPI. Nevertheless, it's clear that this plumbing has seen limited testing, since userspace can trivially cause a WARN in the MMIO return:

WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 30558 at arch/arm64/include/asm/kvm_emulate.h:536 kvm_handle_mmio_return+0x46c/0x5c4 arch/arm64/include/asm/kvm_emulate.h:536 Call trace: kvm_handle_mmio_return+0x46c/0x5c4 arch/arm64/include/asm/kvm_emulate.h:536 kvm_arch_vcpu_ioctl_run+0x98/0x15b4 arch/arm64/kvm/arm.c:1133 kvm_vcpu_ioctl+0x75c/0xa78 virt/kvm/kvm_main.c:4487 __do_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:51 [inline] __se_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:893 [inline] __arm64_sys_ioctl+0x14c/0x1c8 fs/ioctl.c:893 __invoke_syscall arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:35 [inline] invoke_syscall+0x98/0x2b8 arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:49 el0_svc_common+0x1e0/0x23c arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:132 do_el0_svc+0x48/0x58 arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:151 el0_svc+0x38/0x68 arch/arm64/kernel/entry-common.c:712 el0t_64_sync_handler+0x90/0xfc arch/arm64/kernel/entry-common.c:730 el0t_64_sync+0x190/0x194 arch/arm64/kernel/entry.S:598

The splat is complaining that KVM is advancing PC while an exception is pending, i.e. that KVM is retiring the MMIO instruction despite a pending synchronous external abort. Womp womp.

Fix the glaring UAPI bug by skipping over all the MMIO emulation in case there is a pending synchronous exception. Note that while userspace is capable of pending an asynchronous exception (SError, IRQ, or FIQ), it is still safe to retire the MMIO instruction in this case as (1) they are by definition asynchronous, and (2) KVM relies on hardware support for pending/delivering these exceptions instead of the software state machine for advancing PC.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.1.120, 6.6.66, 6.11.11, 6.12.2, 6.13
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.123-1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.12.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2024-53196

  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-58.60
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1027.29
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1028.30
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1023.27
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1024.24
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1027.32
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1010.12
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1028.32

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2024-53196

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 Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-25.1
  • kernel-source-rt Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-25.1
  • kernel-livepatch-MICRO-6-0-RT_Update_5 Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 1-1.1
  • kernel-source Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-25.1
  • kernel-default Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-25.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-25.1
  • kernel-default-base Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-24.1.21.4
  • kernel-livepatch-MICRO-6-0_Update_5 Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 1-1.2

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:20166-1SUSE-SU-2025:20249-1SUSE-SU-2025:20165-1SUSE-SU-2025:20248-1SUSE-SU-2025:0557-1SUSE-SU-2025:0499-1

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-2024-53196 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: KVM: arm64: Don't retire aborted MMIO instruction

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +82 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    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
3 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.22% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 13% 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

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.