CVE-2026-102916
Reachable assertion in illumos bhyve REP string instruction emulation allows guest to panic host
- State
- Published
- Severity
- 6.8 Medium
- Published
- Oct 9, 2026
- Updated
- Oct 9, 2026
- Reserved
- Sep 29, 2026
Description
A reachable assertion in the illumos bhyve instruction emulator allows a guest to panic the host. When emulating a REP-prefixed MOVS or STOS instruction that accesses guest MMIO, vie_emulate_movs() and vie_emulate_stos() in usr/src/uts/intel/io/vmm/vmm_instruction_emul.c do not clear the VIES_REPEAT status flag on the final iteration. For MMIO regions emulated in the kernel (the local APIC, I/O APIC and HPET), the stale flag causes a VERIFY assertion in vie_advance_pc() to fail, and the host panics. A privileged user within a guest VM can issue a REP MOVS or REP STOS instruction against the local APIC page to cause a denial of service of the host and every other guest running on it. The flaw has existed since 2020 (illumos-gate commit e0c0d44e), and affects any illumos distribution prior to illumos-gate commit 696ecf8d.
Scores
| CVSS | Score | Vector | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.0 | 6.8 Medium | CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:H/E:P/AU:Y/R:A/V:C | illumos |
Weaknesses
- CWE-617 Reachable Assertion
Affected Products
| Product | Versions |
|---|---|
illumos-gateillumos |
|
OmniOSOmniOS |
|
References
- https://illumos.topicbox.com/groups/developer/T697a32b688807e56/cve-2026-102916-18491-bhyve-rep-prefix-instr-emulation-fumbles-flagsmailing-list
- https://illumos.org/issues/18491issue-tracking
- https://github.com/illumos/illumos-gate/commit/696ecf8debceed9dc33937d8c8e111e4aeebfdaepatch
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/10/09/19
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