CVE-2021-47092

published 2024-03-04

CVE-2021-47092: In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: VMX: Always clear vmx->fail on emulation_required Revert a relatively recent change…

Priority P4 21 medium 5.5 CVSS 3.1

AV L AC L PR L UI N S U C N I N A H

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

KVM: VMX: Always clear vmx->fail on emulation_required

Revert a relatively recent change that set vmx->fail if the vCPU is in L2
and emulation_required is true, as that behavior is completely bogus.
Setting vmx->fail and synthesizing a VM-Exit is contradictory and wrong:

(a) it's impossible to have both a VM-Fail and VM-Exit
(b) vmcs.EXIT_REASON is not modified on VM-Fail
(c) emulation_required refers to guest state and guest state checks are
always VM-Exits, not VM-Fails.

For KVM specifically, emulation_required is handled before nested exits
in __vmx_handle_exit(), thus setting vmx->fail has no immediate effect,
i.e. KVM calls into handle_invalid_guest_state() and vmx->fail is ignored.
Setting vmx->fail can ultimately result in a WARN in nested_vmx_vmexit()
firing when tearing down the VM as KVM never expects vmx->fail to be set
when L2 is active, KVM always reflects those errors into L1.

------------[ cut here ]------------
WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 21158 at arch/x86/kvm/vmx/nested.c:4548
nested_vmx_vmexit+0x16bd/0x17e0
arch/x86/kvm/vmx/nested.c:4547
Modules linked in:
CPU: 0 PID: 21158 Comm: syz-executor.1 Not tainted 5.16.0-rc3-syzkaller #0
Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 01/01/2011
RIP: 0010:nested_vmx_vmexit+0x16bd/0x17e0 arch/x86/kvm/vmx/nested.c:4547
Code: 0b e9 2e f8 ff ff e8 57 b3 5d 00 0f 0b e9 00 f1 ff ff 89 e9 80
Call Trace:
vmx_leave_nested arch/x86/kvm/vmx/nested.c:6220 [inline]
nested_vmx_free_vcpu+0x83/0xc0 arch/x86/kvm/vmx/nested.c:330
vmx_free_vcpu+0x11f/0x2a0 arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c:6799
kvm_arch_vcpu_destroy+0x6b/0x240 arch/x86/kvm/x86.c:10989
kvm_vcpu_destroy+0x29/0x90 arch/x86/kvm/../../../virt/kvm/kvm_main.c:441
kvm_free_vcpus arch/x86/kvm/x86.c:11426 [inline]
kvm_arch_destroy_vm+0x3ef/0x6b0 arch/x86/kvm/x86.c:11545
kvm_destroy_vm arch/x86/kvm/../../../virt/kvm/kvm_main.c:1189 [inline]
kvm_put_kvm+0x751/0xe40 arch/x86/kvm/../../.

Affected

9 ranges

Vendor	Product	Version range	Fixed in
debian	linux	< linux 5.15.15-1 (bookworm)	linux 5.15.15-1 (bookworm)
linux	linux	—	—
linux	linux	>= c8607e4a086fae05efe5bffb47c5199c65e7216e < e4e4e7cb229821cd215031abc47efdab5486a67c	e4e4e7cb229821cd215031abc47efdab5486a67c
linux	linux	>= c8607e4a086fae05efe5bffb47c5199c65e7216e < a80dfc025924024d2c61a4c1b8ef62b2fce76a04	a80dfc025924024d2c61a4c1b8ef62b2fce76a04
linux	linux_kernel	—	—
linux	linux_kernel	>= 0 < 5.15.15-1	5.15.15-1
linux	linux_kernel	>= 0 < 5.15.15-1	5.15.15-1
linux	linux_kernel	>= 0 < 5.15.15-1	5.15.15-1
linux	linux_kernel	>= 5.15 < 5.15.12	5.15.12

CVSS provenance

nvd v3.1 5.5 MEDIUM CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

osv 5.5 MEDIUM

vendor_debian 5.5 MEDIUM

vendor_redhat 5.5 MEDIUM

Stop checking back — get the weekly exploitation signal.

Every Monday: what got weaponized or added to CISA KEV in the last seven days — each CVE cross-linked to its PoC, Nuclei template, and detection rule. Free, one email a week, unsubscribe in one click.

CWE-20