CVE-2026-23425

Technical Description

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

KVM: arm64: Fix ID register initialization for non-protected pKVM guests

In protected mode, the hypervisor maintains a separate instance of

the `kvm` structure for each VM. For non-protected VMs, this structure is

initialized from the host's `kvm` state.

Currently, `pkvm_init_features_from_host()` copies the

`KVM_ARCH_FLAG_ID_REGS_INITIALIZED` flag from the host without the

underlying `id_regs` data being initialized. This results in the

hypervisor seeing the flag as set while the ID registers remain zeroed.

Consequently, `kvm_has_feat()` checks at EL2 fail (return 0) for

non-protected VMs. This breaks logic that relies on feature detection,

such as `ctxt_has_tcrx()` for TCR2_EL1 support. As a result, certain

system registers (e.g., TCR2_EL1, PIR_EL1, POR_EL1) are not

saved/restored during the world switch, which could lead to state

corruption.

Fix this by explicitly copying the ID registers from the host `kvm` to

Remediation

Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from linux. Update linux_kernel to the latest patched version. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.

Affected Products

References