CVE-2026-98471

KVM: SEV: Do cache maintenance on the source VM during intra-host migration

State
Published
Severity
7.1 High
Published
Oct 18, 2026
Updated
Oct 24, 2026
Reserved
Sep 25, 2026

Read the record on cve.org

Description

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

KVM: SEV: Do cache maintenance on the source VM during intra-host migration

Manually perform cache maintenance on the source VM during intra-host migration to ensure no stale data is left in CPU caches after the VM is destroyed. Because the source VM is "converted" to a non-SEV VM, KVM's memory reclaim flows won't trigger cache maintenance, e.g. when all guest memory is reclaimed in response to detaching from the mmu_notifier.

Note, relying on the destination VM to do cache maintenance isn't an option as KVM doesn't require identical guest memory configurations, i.e. the source VM may have access to memory that the destination VM does not. Enforcing equivalent memory configurations is infeasible, as it would require a *deep* comparison of memslots, e.g. to verify that not only are the memslot identical, but what the memslots point at is also identical.

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
3.17.1 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:HLinux

Weaknesses

The record names no weakness.

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • b56639318bb2be66aceba92836279714488709b4 to before 37dfb676fafd1eef36fe0bb649607afbb0d5521bAffected
  • b56639318bb2be66aceba92836279714488709b4 to before d4cc2dff12116a700add601c0262132cc26e1b2cAffected
  • b56639318bb2be66aceba92836279714488709b4 to before 93de2a6a4b91b72607136dd656edf03fb399d27fAffected
LinuxLinux
  • 5.16Affected
  • before 5.16Not affected
  • 6.18.55 through 6.18.*Not affected
  • 7.2.9 through 7.2.*Not affected
  • 7.3 and laterNot affected

References

Every record here comes from the CVE Program’s CVE List. © 1999–2026 The MITRE Corporation. CVE is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. The records are reproduced under the CVE Program terms of use.