Bug 2521356 (CVE-2026-74607)

Summary: CVE-2026-74607 kernel: KVM: SVM: Serialize accesses to the owner and mirror list with separate lock
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: ---
Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) Secure Virtual Machine (SVM) module within the Linux kernel. This vulnerability involves a race condition during the management of encrypted virtual machine contexts, specifically when handling owner and mirror lists. A privileged user or malicious guest virtual machine could exploit this timing issue during concurrent operations, such as virtual machine migration or destruction. This could lead to corruption of internal data structures or incorrect handling of virtual machine resources, potentially resulting in system instability or a denial of service.
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-22 15:41:30 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

KVM: SVM: Serialize accesses to the owner and mirror list with separate lock

Interaction between KVM_CAP_VM_MOVE_ENC_CONTEXT_FROM and
KVM_CAP_VM_COPY_ENC_CONTEXT_FROM can cause two separate issues:

- in sev_migrate_from(), when the destination KVM is a mirror, the mirror
  entry is moved from the source's list to the owner's mirror_vms list,
  without holding the owner's lock unlike other writers of the owner's
  mirror list (sev_vm_copy_enc_context_from(), sev_vm_destroy()).
  A concurrent COPY or destroy can race with sev_migrate_from() and
  corrupt the list.

- In sev_vm_destroy(), the *owner* is still active and could receive
  concurrently a KVM_CAP_VM_MOVE_ENC_CONTEXT_FROM that causes
  sev->enc_context_owner to change.  In this case the incorrect VM
  receives kvm_put_kvm().

The second issue needs particular care because the owner could disappear
altogether (even though the race window is impossibly small) between
reading it and locking it.  There is thus no way to perform the checks
under the owner lock without putting struct kvm under SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU
(which would allow kvm_get_kvm_safe() under RCU critical section).

It is much simpler to just use a global lock, since the critical
sections are so small and the new lock is always a leaf lock.