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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2025-23141 json

KVM: x86: Acquire SRCU in KVM_GET_MP_STATE to protect guest memory accesses

published 2025-05-01 18 mo ago modified 2026-10-15 24 d ago also EUVD-2025-13106

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 11%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

KVM: x86: Acquire SRCU in KVM_GET_MP_STATE to protect guest memory accesses

Acquire a lock on kvm->srcu when userspace is getting MP state to handle a rather extreme edge case where "accepting" APIC events, i.e. processing pending INIT or SIPI, can trigger accesses to guest memory. If the vCPU is in L2 with INIT *and* a TRIPLE_FAULT request pending, then getting MP state will trigger a nested VM-Exit by way of ->check_nested_events(), and emuating the nested VM-Exit can access guest memory.

The splat was originally hit by syzkaller on a Google-internal kernel, and reproduced on an upstream kernel by hacking the triple_fault_event_test selftest to stuff a pending INIT, store an MSR on VM-Exit (to generate a memory access on VMX), and do vcpu_mp_state_get() to trigger the scenario.

============================= WARNING: suspicious RCU usage 6.14.0-rc3-b112d356288b-vmx/pi_lockdep_false_pos-lock #3 Not tainted ----------------------------- include/linux/kvm_host.h:1058 suspicious rcu_dereference_check() usage!

other info that might help us debug this:

rcu_scheduler_active = 2, debug_locks = 1 1 lock held by triple_fault_ev/1256: #0: ffff88810df5a330 (&vcpu->mutex){+.+.}-{4:4}, at: kvm_vcpu_ioctl+0x8b/0x9a0 [kvm]

stack backtrace: CPU: 11 UID: 1000 PID: 1256 Comm: triple_fault_ev Not tainted 6.14.0-rc3-b112d356288b-vmx #3 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 0.0.0 02/06/2015 Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0x7f/0x90 lockdep_rcu_suspicious+0x144/0x190 kvm_vcpu_gfn_to_memslot+0x156/0x180 [kvm] kvm_vcpu_read_guest+0x3e/0x90 [kvm] read_and_check_msr_entry+0x2e/0x180 [kvm_intel] __nested_vmx_vmexit+0x550/0xde0 [kvm_intel] kvm_check_nested_events+0x1b/0x30 [kvm] kvm_apic_accept_events+0x33/0x100 [kvm] kvm_arch_vcpu_ioctl_get_mpstate+0x30/0x1d0 [kvm] kvm_vcpu_ioctl+0x33e/0x9a0 [kvm] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x8b/0xb0 do_syscall_64+0x6c/0x170 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53 </TASK>

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.15.209, 6.1.135, 6.6.88, 6.12.24, 6.13.12, 6.14.3, 6.15
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.135-1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.12.25-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-23141

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-186.196
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-100.100
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1112.119
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1046.49
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1112.122
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1047.50
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1108.114
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1043.48

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-23141

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 6.2 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-64kb SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-source SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-default SLES 16.0, SLE High Availability Extension 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2 +1 more 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1.160000.2.4
  • kernel-syms SLES 16.0, Linux Micro Extras 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-obs-qa SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:21074-1SUSE-SU-2025:21139-1SUSE-SU-2026:20560-1SUSE-SU-2025:21179-1SUSE-SU-2025:03204-1SUSE-SU-2025:02923-1

  • kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2025:20081-1

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-2025-23141 updated cvss 6.1

kernel: KVM: x86: Acquire SRCU in KVM_GET_MP_STATE to protect guest memory accesses

  • 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 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “To mitigate this issue, prevent module kvm from being loaded. Please see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/41278 for how to blacklist a kernel module to prevent it from loading automatically.”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    affected: workaround, no fix available “To mitigate this issue, prevent module kvm from being loaded. Please see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/41278 for how to blacklist a kernel module to prevent it from loading automatically.”

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
total
Assessed
24 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.21% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 11% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
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.