CVE-2026-89915 (CVSS 9.3)

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: arm64: Remove VM-wide VNCR mapping counter The global VNCR mapping counter is used to decide whether an L1 provided VNCR page is mapped in L0 on any CPU at the point of dealing with a TLB invalidation. It is incremented when a mapping is made in the fixmap, and decremented when unmapped. As it turns out, this tracking has several flaws: - we are trying to invalidate TLBs, and the mapping is only an opportunistic consequence of the TLB. Checking this counter to decide whether a TLB needs to be invalidated may result in missed invalidations. - an L1 vcpu invalidating its own TLB (a very likely case) will not succeed in invalidating the VNCR pseudo TLB because that page is not mapped in L0 at this stage. Given that this tracking fails at delivering the minimum guarantees that are required and is only a performance optimisation, remove it completely.

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CVSS v3.1 Score

9.3

CRITICAL

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS — Exploit Prediction

0.0019

Probability of exploitation

0.08%

Percentile rank

EPSS estimates the probability that this vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. A higher score means more likely to be exploited.

References

Other References

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5453b85c7ebb605febac3df42021f9471663f051 https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/87c2bbf189829dce4aaada8f82e3d54ccc037976 https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c55bc773b6e814406658fae7dc5c15f639ed816e

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2026-89915? +

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: arm64: Remove VM-wide VNCR mapping counter The global VNCR mapping counter is used to decide whether an L1 provided VNCR page is mapped in L0 on any CPU at the point of dealing with a TLB invalidation. It is incremented when a mapping is made in the fixmap, and decremented when unmapped. As it turns out, this tracking has several flaws: - we are trying to invalidate TLBs, and the mapping is only an opportunistic consequence of the TLB. Checking this counter to decide whether a TLB needs to be invalidated may result in missed invalidations. - an L1 vcpu invalidating its own TLB (a very likely case) will not succeed in invalidating the VNCR pseudo TLB because that page is not mapped in L0 at this stage. Given that this tracking fails at delivering the minimum guarantees that are required and is only a performance optimisation, remove it completely. It has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.3 (CRITICAL).

How severe is CVE-2026-89915? +

CVE-2026-89915 has a CVSS v3.1 score of 9.3 out of 10, rated CRITICAL. This is a critical vulnerability that should be patched immediately. The EPSS score is 0.0019, placing it in the 0th percentile for exploitation probability.

How do I check if I'm vulnerable to CVE-2026-89915? +

You can use Secably's free Website Scanner to check your website for known vulnerabilities. For infrastructure scanning, use the Port Scanner to identify exposed services that may be affected. Check the vendor advisories linked above for specific patch and version information.

CVE-2026-89915