CVE-2021-47226
x86/fpu: Invalidate FPU state after a failed XRSTOR from a user buffer
- State
- Published
- Severity
- 7.1 High
- Published
- May 21, 2024
- Updated
- Aug 5, 2026
- Reserved
- Apr 10, 2024
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
x86/fpu: Invalidate FPU state after a failed XRSTOR from a user buffer
Both Intel and AMD consider it to be architecturally valid for XRSTOR to fail with #PF but nonetheless change the register state. The actual conditions under which this might occur are unclear [1], but it seems plausible that this might be triggered if one sibling thread unmaps a page and invalidates the shared TLB while another sibling thread is executing XRSTOR on the page in question.
__fpu__restore_sig() can execute XRSTOR while the hardware registers are preserved on behalf of a different victim task (using the fpu_fpregs_owner_ctx mechanism), and, in theory, XRSTOR could fail but modify the registers.
If this happens, then there is a window in which __fpu__restore_sig() could schedule out and the victim task could schedule back in without reloading its own FPU registers. This would result in part of the FPU state that __fpu__restore_sig() was attempting to load leaking into the victim task's user-visible state.
Invalidate preserved FPU registers on XRSTOR failure to prevent this situation from corrupting any state.
[1] Frequent readers of the errata lists might imagine "complex microarchitectural conditions".
Scores
| CVSS | Score | Vector | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | 7.1 High | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H | Linux |
Weaknesses
The record names no weakness.
Affected Products
| Product | Versions |
|---|---|
LinuxLinux |
|
LinuxLinux |
|
References
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