Bug 2554828 (CVE-2026-98464)

Summary: CVE-2026-98464 kernel: RISC-V: KVM: Synchronize hrtimer callback during teardown
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: akhatavk, aos-team-art-private, asdas, dpaolell, jdelft, jupierce, lgarciaa, mbiarnes, ppalepu, ppostler, prdhamdh, rhel-process-autobot, sghai, sidsharm, suppawar, vlaad, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) implementation for the RISC-V architecture. This vulnerability can lead to a Denial of Service (DoS) or host system crash due to a use-after-free memory issue during virtual machine teardown. A race condition allows a timer callback to continue executing after its associated virtual central processing unit (vCPU) has already been freed. A malicious user within a guest virtual machine can exploit this by scheduling a timer and immediately requesting a system shutdown.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-18 15:21:25 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

RISC-V: KVM: Synchronize hrtimer callback during teardown

The non-Sstc hrtimer callback clears next_set before its final uses of
the enclosing vCPU.  If teardown observes next_set as false while the
callback is still running, kvm_riscv_vcpu_timer_cancel() skips
hrtimer_cancel() and kvm_destroy_vcpus() can free the vCPU before the
callback enters kvm_riscv_vcpu_set_interrupt().

A guest can arm the timer with SBI TIME and request shutdown with SBI
legacy shutdown or SRST.  A VMM that honors KVM_EXIT_SYSTEM_EVENT and
destroys the VM supplies the teardown side of the race; no post-launch
host ioctl is needed to arm or request teardown.

On upstream master 62cc90241548, generic KASAN reported:

  BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in do_raw_spin_lock
  Write of size 4 at addr ff60000005e58898

  kvm_riscv_vcpu_set_interrupt
  kvm_riscv_vcpu_hrtimer_expired
  __hrtimer_run_queues
  hrtimer_interrupt

The object was allocated by KVM_CREATE_VCPU and freed concurrently by:

  kvm_destroy_vcpus
  kvm_arch_destroy_vm
  kvm_destroy_vm
  __fput

For deterministic validation, I added mdelay(1000) immediately after
the existing next_set = false assignment.  This only widens the
existing post-clear callback window.  A no-delay trace build naturally
reached the callback-after-teardown-start/before-deinit ordering in 12
of 200 runs, but 1,500 stock-kernel stress iterations did not produce a
KASAN report, so natural reproduction is timing-sensitive.

Always invoke hrtimer_cancel() for an initialized timer.  Preserve the
existing -EINVAL result when the timer is no longer set, but only after
synchronizing with a running callback.

With this patch, hrtimer_cancel() blocked for the full widened callback
window before vCPU destruction.  KASAN reported no error in 100
fixed-and-widened runs or 200 fix-only timing-sweep runs.