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TI-2021-21936 Aliases CVE-2021-47277GHSA-6239-6f98-f8vf

kvm: avoid speculation-based attacks from out-of-range memslot accesses

Priority LOW 31CWE-125Published · Updated

Key facts

Attack vector
Local
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Attack complexity
Low
Impact type
—
Confidentiality · integrity · availability
High · None · High
Fix status
Partial Red Hat: 3 without a fix

Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · NVD. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat.

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: kvm: avoid speculation-based attacks from out-of-range memslot accesses KVM's mechanism for accessing guest memory translates a guest physical address (gpa) to a host virtual address using the right-shifted gpa (also known as gfn) and a struct kvm_memory_slot. The translation is performed in __gfn_to_hva_memslot using the following formula: hva = slot->userspace_addr + (gfn - slot->base_gfn) * PAGE_SIZE It is expected that gfn falls within the boundaries of the guest's physical memory. However, a guest can access invalid physical addresses in such a way that the gfn is invalid. __gfn_to_hva_memslot is called from kvm_vcpu_gfn_to_hva_prot, which first retrieves a memslot through __gfn_to_memslot. While __gfn_to_memslot does check that the gfn falls within the boundaries of the guest's physical memory or not, a CPU can speculate the result of the check and continue execution speculatively using an illegal gfn. The speculation can result in calculating an out-of-bounds hva. If the resulting host virtual address is used to load another guest physical address, this is effectively a Spectre gadget consisting of two consecutive reads, the second of which is data dependent on the first. Right now it's not clear if there are any cases in which this is exploitable. One interesting case was reported by the original author of this patch, and involves visiting guest page tables on x86. Right now these are not vulnerable because the hva read goes through get_user(), which contains an LFENCE speculation barrier. However, there are patches in progress for x86 uaccess.h to mask kernel addresses instead of using LFENCE; once these land, a guest could use speculation to read from the VMM's ring 3 address space. Other architectures such as ARM already use the address masking method, and would be susceptible to this same kind of data-dependent access gadgets. Therefore, this patch proactively protects from these attacks by masking out-of-bounds gfns in __gfn_to_hva_memslot, which blocks speculation of invalid hvas. Sean Christopherson noted that this patch does not cover kvm_read_guest_offset_cached. This however is limited to a few bytes past the end of the cache, and therefore it is unlikely to be useful in the context of building a chain of data dependent accesses.

Why it matters now

Exploitation None reported CISA SSVC · not in CISA KEV
EPSS 0.00259 17th percentileScored 2026-11-07
Fix Partial Linux (Linux): 4.4.273, 4.9.273, 4.14.237 +5Red Hat: 3 without a fix

SSVC decision points

CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3

Exploitation
None
Automatable
No
Technical impact
Partial

The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.

Affected products

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed inStatusSource
LinuxLinux2.6.25 and later4.4.273, 4.9.273, 4.14.237, 4.19.195, 5.4.126, 5.10.44, 5.12.11, 5.13Patch availableCNA
  • Linux VendorLinux Affected 2.6.25 and later Fixed in 4.4.273, 4.9.273, 4.14.237, 4.19.195, 5.4.126, 5.10.44, 5.12.11, 5.13 Patch available CNA

CPE configurations NVD · 6

CPEVersionsRoleVendor
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*before 4.4.273; 4.5 to before 4.9.273; 4.10 to before 4.14.237; 4.15 to before 4.19.195; 4.20 to before 5.4.126; 5.5 to before 5.10.44; 5.11 to before 5.12.11VulnerableLinux
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.13:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*5.13 rc1VulnerableLinux
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.13:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:*5.13 rc2VulnerableLinux
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.13:rc3:*:*:*:*:*:*5.13 rc3VulnerableLinux
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.13:rc4:*:*:*:*:*:*5.13 rc4VulnerableLinux
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.13:rc5:*:*:*:*:*:*5.13 rc5VulnerableLinux
  • cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions before 4.4.273; 4.5 to before 4.9.273; 4.10 to before 4.14.237; 4.15 to before 4.19.195; 4.20 to before 5.4.126; 5.5 to before 5.10.44; 5.11 to before 5.12.11 Vulnerable ·Linux
  • cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.13:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions 5.13 rc1 Vulnerable ·Linux
  • cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.13:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions 5.13 rc2 Vulnerable ·Linux
  • cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.13:rc3:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions 5.13 rc3 Vulnerable ·Linux
  • cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.13:rc4:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions 5.13 rc4 Vulnerable ·Linux
  • cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.13:rc5:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions 5.13 rc5 Vulnerable ·Linux

Remediation

  • Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 4.4.273, 4.9.273, 4.14.237, 4.19.195, 5.4.126, 5.10.44, 5.12.11, 5.13

Vendor assessments

Red Hat

Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →

ProductStatusPlan or fix
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6AffectedNo fix planned: Out of support scope
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7AffectedNo fix planned: Out of support scope
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8AffectedNo fix planned: Out of support scope
Not affected: 1 product
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

Timeline

  1. 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2021-47277
  2. 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-6239-6f98-f8vf

References

  • TI-2025-26358 tls: fix handling of zero-length records on the rx_list KEVCVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
  • TI-2026-38352 netfilter: bridge: make ebt_snat ARP rewrite writable KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
  • TI-2013-05264 The (1) get_user and (2) put_user API functions in the Linux kernel before 3.5.5 on the… KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
  • TI-2022-00125 Integer overflow in kernel KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.4
  • TI-2013-01864 The perf_swevent_init function in kernel/events/core.c in the Linux kernel before 3.8.9… KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.4
  • TI-2021-05514 Heap Out-Of-Bounds Write in Netfilter IP6T_SO_SET_REPLACE KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.3
See all 15278 →

Sources