CVE-2026-89927

KVM: x86: hyper-v: Clamp stimer deadline to avoid livelock

HIGH
7.1
CVSS Score
Published: September 16, 2026 at 10:32 AM UTC
Updated: October 19, 2026 at 09:18 AM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorLinux Kernel

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Severity
HIGH7.1
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.2%

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: x86: hyper-v: Clamp stimer deadline to avoid livelock Fix an issue where userspace or the guest can program an Hyper-V synthetic timer to have a deadline in the past via integer overflow, preventing the CPU from making progress and triggering an RCU stall. Hyper-V's SynIC exposes 4 per-vCPU synthetic timers to the guest, which are emulated by KVM. Each is programmed through the HV_X64_MSR_STIMERi_CONFIG and HV_X64_MSR_STIMERi_COUNT MSRs. Depending on CONFIG, COUNT represents either the absolute expiration time or the period of a periodic timer, both expressed in 100ns ticks. These timers may be set both by the guest (WRMSR) and the host (KVM_SET_MSRS). When the timer is enabled, stimer_start() translates COUNT to an absolute monotonic deadline and arms an hrtimer. If COUNT is set to a value close to U64_MAX, the deadline calculation can overflow. ktime_add_ns(ktime_now, 100 * (stimer->exp_time - time_now)) This can result in a CPU livelock. stimer_start() arms the timer via hrtimer_start() with a deadline in the past, which causes it to immediately fire. The stimer callback then raises KVM_RQ_HV_STIMER, with the intention of causing KVM to deliver a synthetic interrupt on the next vCPU guest enter. Then, once userspace issues KVM_RUN, vcpu_enter_guest() consumes the request, calling kvm_hv_process_stimers(). This would normally disable the timer via stimer_expiration() once the deadline is in the past. However, the deadline comparison is done between the KVM reference counter and stime->exp_time, which is a big value close to U64_MAX, so this never happens for a few thousand years. kvm_hv_process_timers() then re-arms the timer via stimer_start(), since it was not disabled, which again fires immediately. Before entering the guest, kvm_vcpu_exit_request() checks kvm_request_pending(), which returns true due to the newly raised KVM_REQ_HV_STIMER. Then vcpu_enter_guest() aborts the guest entry, returning early into vcpu_run(), which loops back again into vcpu_enter_guest(), restarting the cycle. Since there are no manual yields in this loop, a task with SCHED_FIFO may starve RCU grace-period kthreads, which exposes the stalls found by syzcaller: rcu: INFO: rcu_preempt detected stalls on CPUs/tasks: rcu: (detected by 1, t=10502 jiffies, g=14269, q=1142 ncpus=2) rcu: All QSes seen, last rcu_preempt kthread activity 10500 (4294965239-4294954739), jiffies_till_next_fqs=1, root ->qsmask 0x0 rcu: rcu_preempt kthread starved for 10500 jiffies! g14269 f0x2 RCU_GP_WAIT_FQS(5) ->state=0x0 ->cpu=0 rcu: Unless rcu_preempt kthread gets sufficient CPU time, OOM is now expected behavior. ( ... ) Call Trace: <IRQ> __run_hrtimer kernel/time/hrtimer.c:1773 [inline] __hrtimer_run_queues+0x408/0xc30 kernel/time/hrtimer.c:1841 hrtimer_interrupt+0x45b/0xaa0 kernel/time/hrtimer.c:1903 local_apic_timer_interrupt arch/x86/kernel/apic/apic.c:1045 [inline] __sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt+0x102/0x3e0 arch/x86/kernel/apic/apic.c:1062 instr_sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt arch/x86/kernel/apic/apic.c:1056 [inline] sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt+0xa1/0xc0 arch/x86/kernel/apic/apic.c:1056 </IRQ> <TASK> asm_sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt+0x1a/0x20 arch/x86/include/asm/idtentry.h:697 RIP: 0010:__raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore include/linux/spinlock_api_smp.h:152 [inline] RIP: 0010:_raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore+0xa8/0x110 kernel/locking/spinlock.c:194 Code: 74 05 e8 0b f4 5f f6 48 c7 44 24 20 00 00 00 00 9c 8f 44 24 20 f6 44 24 21 02 75 4f f7 c3 00 02 00 00 74 01 fb bf 01 00 00 00 <e8> 23 6b 27 f6 65 8b 05 7c 60 5a 07 85 c0 74 40 48 c7 04 24 0e 36 RSP: 0018:ffffc900040a7320 EFLAGS: 00000206 RAX: 5de15cb931505900 RBX: 0000000000000a06 RCX: 5de15cb931505900 RDX: 0000000000000007 RSI: ffffffff8daa9dc3 RDI: 0000000000000001 RBP: ffffc900040a73b0 R08: ffffffff8fc3d0 ---truncated---

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

1f4b34f825e8cef6f493d06b46605384785b3d164.5
Vendor states this is fixed in 0ca49fbd2883cd53d32d85b50feef17fa04d0fbf (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 3097582b73a8ed1cd6f6790fa78706f4a79b5a49 (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 61954727ee08f026f5e1c9ee69e1b404a68f2f7a (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6a8ba9213cce613455b1502ee0fd178656bf617b (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 8aa467fe757d8cb2278e98d7fbf44fc05eb0dbf8 (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 8e19ded84336891646b31375720717635f0fdd90 (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in a4665762388750e08df99baabe5fce2a21d1423e (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in bdb732ebee545b7e3bee7060efc754a8d99818b9 (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 4.5 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 5.10.270 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 5.15.221 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.1.188 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.12.110 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.18.51 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.6.157 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 7.2.5 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 7.3 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 7.3-rc1 (unaffected)

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet, and no fixed version or vendor advisory is recorded against it.

CVSS

7.1HIGHLinux
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusRECEIVED

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