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CVE-2026-23215

MEDIUMCVSS 5.5/10EPSS 0.11%

Last modified

CVE-2026-23215 is a medium-severity vulnerability rated 5.5/10 on the CVSS scale. In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/vmware: Fix hypercall clobbers Fedora QA reported the following panic: BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: 0000000040003e54 #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS edk2-20251119-3.fc43 11/19/2025 RIP: 0010:vmware_hypercall4.constprop.0+0x52/0x90 .. Call Trace: vmmouse_report_events+0x13e/0x1b0 psmouse_handle_byte+0x15/0x60 ps2_interrupt+0x8a/0xd0 ... because the QEMU VMware mouse emulation is buggy, and clears the top 32 bits of %rdi that the kernel kept a pointer in. The QEMU vmmouse driver saves and restores the register state in a "uint32_t data[6];" and as a result restores the state with the high bits all cleared. RDI originally contained the value of a valid kernel stack address (0xff5eeb3240003e54). After the vmware hypercall it now contains 0x40003e54, and we get a page fault as a result when it is dereferenced. The proper fix would be in QEMU, but this works around the issue in the kernel to keep old setups working, when old kernels had not happened to keep any state in %rdi over the hypercall. In theory this same issue exists for all the hypercalls in the vmmouse driver; in practice it has only been seen with vmware_hypercall3() and vmware_hypercall4(). EPSS estimates a 0.11% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/vmware: Fix hypercall clobbers Fedora QA reported the following panic: BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: 0000000040003e54 #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS edk2-20251119-3.fc43 11/19/2025 RIP: 0010:vmware_hypercall4.constprop.0+0x52/0x90 .. Call Trace: vmmouse_report_events+0x13e/0x1b0 psmouse_handle_byte+0x15/0x60 ps2_interrupt+0x8a/0xd0 ... because the QEMU VMware mouse emulation is buggy, and clears the top 32 bits of %rdi that the kernel kept a pointer in. The QEMU vmmouse driver saves and restores the register state in a "uint32_t data[6];" and as a result restores the state with the high bits all cleared. RDI originally contained the value of a valid kernel stack address (0xff5eeb3240003e54). After the vmware hypercall it now contains 0x40003e54, and we get a page fault as a result when it is dereferenced. The proper fix would be in QEMU, but this works around the issue in the kernel to keep old setups working, when old kernels had not happened to keep any state in %rdi over the hypercall. In theory this same issue exists for all the hypercalls in the vmmouse driver; in practice it has only been seen with vmware_hypercall3() and vmware_hypercall4(). For now, just mark RDI/RSI as clobbered for those two calls. This should have a minimal effect on code generation overall as it should be rare for the compiler to want to make RDI/RSI live across hypercalls.

Metrics

CVSS 3.1
5.5/10

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

EPSS Probability
0.11%

1.7th percentile

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days. Learn more

Affected Software

VendorProductVersionsUpdate
LinuxLinux Kernel>= 6.11, < 6.12.70—
LinuxLinux Kernel>= 6.13, < 6.18.10—
LinuxLinux Kernel6.19Rc1

References

Timeline

Published
Last Modified
Status
Analyzed

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2026-23215?
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/vmware: Fix hypercall clobbers Fedora QA reported the following panic: BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: 0000000040003e54 #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS edk2-20251119-3.fc43 11/19/2025 RIP: 0010:vmware_hypercall4.constprop.0+0x52/0x90 .. Call Trace: vmmouse_report_events+0x13e/0x1b0 psmouse_handle_byte+0x15/0x60 ps2_interrupt+0x8a/0xd0 ... because the QEMU VMware mouse emulation is buggy, and clears the top 32 bits of %rdi that the kernel kept a pointer in. The QEMU vmmouse driver saves and restores the register state in a "uint32_t data[6];" and as a result restores the state with the high bits all cleared. RDI originally contained the value of a valid kernel stack address (0xff5eeb3240003e54). After the vmware hypercall it now contains 0x40003e54, and we get a page fault as a result when it is dereferenced. The proper fix would be in QEMU, but this works around the issue in the kernel to keep old setups working, when old kernels had not happened to keep any state in %rdi over the hypercall. In theory this same issue exists for all the hypercalls in the vmmouse driver; in practice it has only been seen with vmware_hypercall3() and vmware_hypercall4(). For now, just mark RDI/RSI as clobbered for those two calls. This should have a minimal effect on code generation overall as it should be rare for the compiler to want to make RDI/RSI live across hypercalls.
How severe is CVE-2026-23215?
CVE-2026-23215 has a CVSS score of 5.5/10 (MEDIUM severity). The EPSS model estimates a 0.11% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.
How do I fix CVE-2026-23215?
Check the vendor references and advisories linked above for patched versions and mitigation guidance. You can also run a Strix scan to test if your systems are affected.

Are you affected by CVE-2026-23215?

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Source: NVD / NIST