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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.3

CVE-2026-74439 in the critical feed json

iommu/vt-d: Clear Present bit before tearing down scalable-mode context entry

published 2026-08-15 2 mo ago modified 2026-10-16 23 d ago also EUVD-2026-59586

cvss
9.3
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 9%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

iommu/vt-d: Clear Present bit before tearing down scalable-mode context entry

device_pasid_table_teardown() zeroes the 128-bit scalable-mode context entry with context_clear_entry() while the Present bit is still set. This creates a window where the hardware can fetch a torn entry, with some fields already zeroed while Present is still set, leading to unpredictable behavior or spurious faults. The context-cache invalidation is issued only after the entry has been zeroed, and intel_pasid_free_table() then frees the PASID directory pages, so the IOMMU can keep walking a stale Present=1 entry that points at freed memory.

While x86 provides strong write ordering, the compiler may reorder the two 64-bit writes to the entry, and the hardware fetch is not guaranteed to be atomic with respect to multiple CPU writes.

Commit c1e4f1dccbe9d ("iommu/vt-d: Clear Present bit before tearing down context entry") fixed this exact pattern in domain_context_clear_one() and the copied-context path, but device_pasid_table_teardown() was not converted.

Align it with the "Guidance to Software for Invalidations" in the VT-d spec, Section 6.5.3.3, using the same ownership handshake as the sibling fix: clear only the Present bit, flush it to the IOMMU, perform the context-cache invalidation, and only then zero the rest of the entry.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.9, 6.12.97, 6.18.40, 7.1.5, 7.2
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.100-1
  • linux Debian 14 7.1.5-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-74439

  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-147.147
  • linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-34.34
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1067.70
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1013.13
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1071.79
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1013.13
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1066.74
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1007.8

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-74439

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-source Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-159998.55.1
  • kernel-default Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-159998.55.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-159998.55.1
  • kernel-default-base Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-159998.55.1.159998.21.42
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.90.1
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.90.1
  • kernel-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.90.1
  • kernel-source SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.90.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:24550-1SUSE-SU-2026:5091-1

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-2026-74439 updated cvss 4.7

kernel: iommu/vt-d: Clear Present bit before tearing down scalable-mode context entry

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +82 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • 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 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 kernel-rt, kernel-rt-selftests-internal
    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
total
Assessed
23 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.20% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 9% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 9.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/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.