Linux Kernel: security vulnerability (CVE-2026-99178)
Published Last modified Sources: Debian, Msrc Update Guide, CVE.org, BSI
What is affected, what to do
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/kvm: Don't consume async #PF flags on a kernel #PF in NMI context An async #PF "page not present" event arrives through the #PF vector, and its reason sits in the per-CPU apf_reason.flags until __kvm_handle_async_pf() reads and clears it. If an NMI arrives after the event is injected and before the #PF handler reads the flags, and the NMI handler itself takes a #PF, that fault reads and clears the flags belonging to the #PF it interrupted.
Update Linux Kernel to version 6.12.115, Linux Kernel to version 6.18.59, Linux Kernel to version 7.2.13.
- Affected
- Linux Kernel
lt 2.6.38..6.12.115 - Linux Kernel
lt 6.13..6.18.59 - Linux Kernel
lt 6.19..7.2.13
- Linux Kernel
- Fixed in
- Linux Kernel
6.12.115 - Linux Kernel
6.18.59 - Linux Kernel
7.2.13 - Linux Kernel
7.3
- Linux Kernel
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Metrics
6.5
Priority
XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.
Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v3
6.5
CVSS v3
Severity Medium on the scale from 0 to 10.
Source: Debian, Msrc Update Guide, CVE.org, BSI
0.2 %
EPSS score
Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.
Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 6.9
Show all metrics
- Severity
- Medium
Priority (0–325)
The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?
Read in glossary- 62.88 Methodology
Exploit maturity
An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.
Read in glossary- no public PoC known
XIEM Effective CVSS
XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.
Read in glossary- 6.5 Methodology
CVSS v3
CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.
Read in glossary- 6.5
EPSS score
The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.
Read in glossary- 0.2 %
- Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.
EPSS percentile
The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.
Read in glossary- 6.9
- Low — this CVE sits in the lower 10% of all CVEs scored today.
KEV status
The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.
Read in glossary- —
- Published
Detection rules
No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.
Classification under NIS2 and CRA
Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.
NIS2
NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.
Read in glossary- Handle the vulnerability in regular vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2.
CRA
The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.
Read in glossary- From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.
Read in glossary- Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/kvm: Don't consume async #PF flags on a kernel #PF in NMI context An async #PF "page not present" event arrives through the #PF vector, and its reason sits in the per-CPU apf_reason.flags until __kvm_handle_async_pf() reads and clears it. If an NMI arrives after the event is injected and before the #PF handler reads the flags, and the NMI handler itself takes a #PF, that fault reads and clears the flags belonging to the #PF it interrupted. It then finds interrupts disabled in the NMI context it interrupted, and panics: Kernel panic - not syncing: Host injected async #PF in interrupt disabled region Call Trace: <NMI> panic+0x52/0x60 __kvm_handle_async_pf+0xb0/0xb0 exc_page_fault+0x71/0xb0 asm_exc_page_fault+0x27/0x30 RIP: 0010:__get_user_nocheck_8+0x6/0x20 perf_callchain_user+0x147/0x1a0 get_perf_callchain+0x12d/0x1c0 ... perf_event_nmi_handler+0x26/0x50 exc_nmi+0xe8/0x110 RIP: 0010:asm_exc_page_fault+0x0/0x30 </NMI> The last RIP line shows the NMI landing on the first instruction of the #PF entry. perf with user call chains takes such a fault: the sampling NMI walks the user stack with __get_user(), which faults when a saved frame pointer is not a valid user address or the walk runs off the top of the stack. The same window exists when KVM, running as an L1 hypervisor with DELIVERY_AS_PF_VMEXIT, reads the flags itself after a #PF VM-exit. The NMI entry code saves and restores CR2 for this nesting, but not the async #PF reason. Andy Lutomirski described the race, with perf as the example, when async #PF delivery was reworked in 2020 [1]. Saving and clearing the flags across the NMI, next to CR2, was discussed there but not merged. Since that rework, Linux has stopped setting KVM_ASYNC_PF_SEND_ALWAYS, so the host delivers "page not present" only for user mode faults and a kernel-mode fault in NMI context (including kernel-mode #MC and #DB) cannot be an async page fault. In that case, return without touching the flags so that the interrupted handler finds them intact. Tested on v7.3-rc5 in a 4-vCPU, 2 GiB guest restored from a snapshot whose memory is served on demand through userfaultfd, so that reading it back takes async #PFs, while every thread samples hardware cycles with user call chains and points its frame pointer at an unmapped page. Without this patch the guest panicked as above in 3 of 3 runs. With it, the guest survived 3 of 3 runs of 60 seconds, and the host counted 148,441 to 153,334 kvm_async_pf_not_present events in the first 20 seconds of each. On 6.18.50 the results were the same: the guest panicked without the patch and survived with it.
Source: Debian Security Advisories, Microsoft Security Update Guide, cvelistv5, NVD (NIST), BSI WID Portal, BSI CSAF
Affected products
The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.
| Affected versions | Fixed in | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Linux | Linux |
|
|
Vendors and products
Affected operating systems
| Linux | debian | linux | trixie |
References & sources
- git.kernel.orgstable/c/81d99abe2bd81379abfb595e403bbbee6fbfc624
- git.kernel.orgstable/c/b77e9622bbade9812e2090c66d25c372f515e921
- git.kernel.orgstable/c/f45ee1ff6358a22d7e22a4c53cb3148ea97b10d9
- git.kernel.orgstable/c/fd60b32a99627fda479c9fa1d4a82fa9f7994670
Changes to this CVE
Who changed this CVE and when: NVD (analysis, affected products, CVSS), the CVE publisher (CNA) and additional providers such as CISA (ADP).
Record modifiedLinux
1 individual change: Affected versions (publisher)
Show the original change
Individual changes of this event as published by NVD Type Action Before After Affected versions (publisher) added —Affected value modified. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/99xxx/CVE-2026-99178.json">CVE-2026-99178</a>Source identifier: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
Record modifiedLinux
Show 2 original changes
Individual changes of this event as published by NVD Type Action Before After Affected versions (publisher) added —Affected value modified. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/99xxx/CVE-2026-99178.json">CVE-2026-99178</a>Reference added —https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fd60b32a99627fda479c9fa1d4a82fa9f7994670Source identifier: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
ReceivedLinux
Description added or changed
Show 5 original changes
Individual changes of this event as published by NVD Type Action Before After Description added —In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/kvm: Don't consume async #PF flags on a kernel #PF in NMI context An async #PF "page not present" event arrives through the #PF vector, and its reason sits in the per-CPU apf_reason.flags until __kvm_handle_async_pf() reads and clears it. If an NMI arrives after the event is injected and before the #PF handler reads the flags, and the NMI handler itself takes a #PF, that fault reads and clears the flags belonging to the #PF it interrupted. It then finds interrupts disabled in the NMI context it interrupted, and panics: Kernel panic - not syncing: Host injected async #PF in interrupt disabled region Call Trace: <NMI> panic+0x52/0x60 __kvm_handle_async_pf+0xb0/0xb0 exc_page_fault+0x71/0xb0 asm_exc_page_fault+0x27/0x30 RIP: 0010:__get_user_nocheck_8+0x6/0x20 perf_callchain_user+0x147/0x1a0 get_perf_callchain+0x12d/0x1c0 ... perf_event_nmi_handler+0x26/0x50 exc_nmi+0xe8/0x110 RIP: 0010:asm_exc_page_fault+0x0/0x30 </NMI> The last RIP line shows the NMI landing on the first instruction of the #PF entry. perf with user call chains takes such a fault: the sampling NMI walks the user stack with __get_user(), which faults when a saved frame pointer is not a valid user address or the walk runs off the top of the stack. The same window exists when KVM, running as an L1 hypervisor with DELIVERY_AS_PF_VMEXIT, reads the flags itself after a #PF VM-exit. The NMI entry code saves and restores CR2 for this nesting, but not the async #PF reason. Andy Lutomirski described the race, with perf as the example, when async #PF delivery was reworked in 2020 [1]. Saving and clearing the flags across the NMI, next to CR2, was discussed there but not merged. Since that rework, Linux has stopped setting KVM_ASYNC_PF_SEND_ALWAYS, so the host delivers "page not present" only for user mode faults and a kernel-mode fault in NMI context (including kernel-mode #MC and #DB) cannot be an async page fault. In that case, return without touching the flags so that the interrupted handler finds them intact. Tested on v7.3-rc5 in a 4-vCPU, 2 GiB guest restored from a snapshot whose memory is served on demand through userfaultfd, so that reading it back takes async #PFs, while every thread samples hardware cycles with user call chains and points its frame pointer at an unmapped page. Without this patch the guest panicked as above in 3 of 3 runs. With it, the guest survived 3 of 3 runs of 60 seconds, and the host counted 148,441 to 153,334 kvm_async_pf_not_present events in the first 20 seconds of each. On 6.18.50 the results were the same: the guest panicked without the patch and survived with it.Affected versions (publisher) added —New affected value received. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/99xxx/CVE-2026-99178.json">CVE-2026-99178</a>Reference added —https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/81d99abe2bd81379abfb595e403bbbee6fbfc624Reference added —https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b77e9622bbade9812e2090c66d25c372f515e921Reference added —https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f45ee1ff6358a22d7e22a4c53cb3148ea97b10d9Source identifier: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
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<a href="https://intel.neosec.eu/en/cve/CVE-2026-99178"><img src="https://intel.neosec.eu/badge/cve/CVE-2026-99178.svg?lang=en" alt="CVE-2026-99178 – NEOSEC Intel" height="20"></a>