CVE-2023-53756

KVM: VMX: Fix crash due to uninitialized current_vmcs

State
Published
Severity
Not scored
Published
Dec 8, 2025
Updated
May 11, 2026
Reserved
Dec 8, 2025

Read the record on cve.org

Description

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

KVM: VMX: Fix crash due to uninitialized current_vmcs

KVM enables 'Enlightened VMCS' and 'Enlightened MSR Bitmap' when running as a nested hypervisor on top of Hyper-V. When MSR bitmap is updated, evmcs_touch_msr_bitmap function uses current_vmcs per-cpu variable to mark that the msr bitmap was changed.

vmx_vcpu_create() modifies the msr bitmap via vmx_disable_intercept_for_msr -> vmx_msr_bitmap_l01_changed which in the end calls this function. The function checks for current_vmcs if it is null but the check is insufficient because current_vmcs is not initialized. Because of this, the code might incorrectly write to the structure pointed by current_vmcs value left by another task. Preemption is not disabled, the current task can be preempted and moved to another CPU while current_vmcs is accessed multiple times from evmcs_touch_msr_bitmap() which leads to crash.

The manipulation of MSR bitmaps by callers happens only for vmcs01 so the solution is to use vmx->vmcs01.vmcs instead of current_vmcs.

BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000338 PGD 4e1775067 P4D 0 Oops: 0002 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI ... RIP: 0010:vmx_msr_bitmap_l01_changed+0x39/0x50 [kvm_intel] ... Call Trace: vmx_disable_intercept_for_msr+0x36/0x260 [kvm_intel] vmx_vcpu_create+0xe6/0x540 [kvm_intel] kvm_arch_vcpu_create+0x1d1/0x2e0 [kvm] kvm_vm_ioctl_create_vcpu+0x178/0x430 [kvm] kvm_vm_ioctl+0x53f/0x790 [kvm] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x8a/0xc0 do_syscall_64+0x5c/0x90 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd

Scores

The record has no CVSS score.

Weaknesses

The record names no weakness.

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • ceef7d10dfb6284d512c499292e6daa35ea83f90 to before 6baebcecf09acd19e2bab1c2911dcdba5d48a1dcAffected
  • ceef7d10dfb6284d512c499292e6daa35ea83f90 to before 6e7bc50f97c9855da83f1478f722590defd45ff2Affected
  • ceef7d10dfb6284d512c499292e6daa35ea83f90 to before b2de2b4d4e007f9add46ea8dc06f781835e3ea9fAffected
  • ceef7d10dfb6284d512c499292e6daa35ea83f90 to before 3ba95cc671c025d0d2a1c7d5e2930f0ff0980cf4Affected
  • ceef7d10dfb6284d512c499292e6daa35ea83f90 to before 93827a0a36396f2fd6368a54a020f420c8916e9bAffected
LinuxLinux
  • 4.18Affected
  • before 4.18Not affected
  • 5.10.175 through 5.10.*Not affected
  • 5.15.103 through 5.15.*Not affected
  • 6.1.16 through 6.1.*Not affected
  • 6.2.3 through 6.2.*Not affected
  • 6.3 and laterNot affected

References

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