UBUNTU-CVE-2026-72279: High severity ubuntu/linux-hwe-edge vulnerability

Q: Which environments are exposed to this issue?

The issue is specific to KVM on arm64 using nested virtualization, where an L1 VNCR is mapped through a backing PFN that is read-only. A read-only memslot is given as an example of a configuration that can create this condition.

Q: What must occur for the flaw to be triggered?

The guest must attempt to write through an L1 VNCR mapping whose backing PFN is read-only. The affected behavior results from deriving the host stage-1 mapping permissions solely from the guest stage-1 permissions without constraining them to the PFN's writability.

Q: How does the resolved behavior handle writes to a read-only backing page?

The fix caches PFN writability in the VNCR TLB and constrains fixmap permissions accordingly. A guest write attempt to a read-only endpoint is promoted to a synchronous external abort (SEA).

Published Aug 15, 2026

Updated

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: arm64: nv: Respect read-only PFN when mapping L1 VNCR KVM currently maps the L1 VNCR into the host stage-1 by relying entirely on the permissions of the guest stage-1. At the same time, it is entirely possible that the backing PFN is read-only (e.g. RO memslot), meaning that the L1 VNCR should use at most a read-only mapping. Cache the writability of the PFN in the VNCR TLB and use it to constrain the resulting fixmap permissions. Promote VNCR permission faults to an SEA in the case where the guest attempts to write to a read-only endpoint. Conveniently, this also plugs a page leak found by Sashiko [] resulting from the early return for a read-only PFN.

Affected Software

129 affected componentsFixes available

ubuntu/linux-hwe-edge*

ubuntu/linux-aws-5.0*

ubuntu/linux-aws-5.3*

ubuntu/linux-azure*

ubuntu/linux-azure-5.3*

ubuntu/linux-azure-edge*

ubuntu/linux-gcp*

ubuntu/linux-gcp-5.3*

ubuntu/linux-gke-4.15*

ubuntu/linux-gke-5.4*

ubuntu/linux-gkeop-5.4*

ubuntu/linux-hwe*

ubuntu/linux-hwe-edge*

ubuntu/linux-oem*

ubuntu/linux-oracle-5.0*

ubuntu/linux-oracle-5.3*

ubuntu/linux-aws-5.11*

ubuntu/linux-aws-5.13*

ubuntu/linux-aws-5.8*

ubuntu/linux-azure-5.11*

ubuntu/linux-azure-5.13*

ubuntu/linux-azure-5.8*

ubuntu/linux-azure-fde*

ubuntu/linux-gcp-5.11*

ubuntu/linux-gcp-5.13*

ubuntu/linux-gcp-5.8*

ubuntu/linux-gke*

ubuntu/linux-gke-5.15*

ubuntu/linux-gkeop*

ubuntu/linux-gkeop-5.15*

ubuntu/linux-hwe-5.11*

ubuntu/linux-hwe-5.13*

ubuntu/linux-hwe-5.8*

ubuntu/linux-intel-5.13*

ubuntu/linux-oem-5.10*

ubuntu/linux-oem-5.13*

ubuntu/linux-oem-5.6*

ubuntu/linux-oracle-5.11*

ubuntu/linux-oracle-5.13*

ubuntu/linux-oracle-5.8*

ubuntu/linux-raspi2*

ubuntu/linux-riscv*

ubuntu/linux-riscv-5.11*

ubuntu/linux-riscv-5.8*

ubuntu/linux-allwinner-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-aws-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-aws-6.2*

ubuntu/linux-aws-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-azure-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-azure-6.2*

ubuntu/linux-azure-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-azure-fde-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-azure-fde-6.2*

ubuntu/linux-gcp-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-gcp-6.2*

ubuntu/linux-gcp-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-hwe-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-hwe-6.2*

ubuntu/linux-hwe-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-intel-iot-realtime*

ubuntu/linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.2*

ubuntu/linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-nvidia-6.2*

ubuntu/linux-nvidia-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-oem-5.17*

ubuntu/linux-oem-6.0*

ubuntu/linux-oem-6.1*

ubuntu/linux-oem-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-oracle-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-realtime*

ubuntu/linux-riscv*

ubuntu/linux-riscv-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-riscv-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-starfive-5.19*

ubuntu/linux-starfive-6.2*

ubuntu/linux-starfive-6.5*

ubuntu/linux-aws-6.14*

ubuntu/linux-aws-6.17*

ubuntu/linux-aws-7.0<7.0.0-1013.13~24.04.1

7.0.0-1013.13~24.04.1

ubuntu/linux-azure-6.11*

ubuntu/linux-azure-6.14*

ubuntu/linux-azure-6.17*

ubuntu/linux-azure-7.0<7.0.0-1017.17~24.04.1

7.0.0-1017.17~24.04.1

ubuntu/linux-azure-fde-6.14*

ubuntu/linux-azure-fde-6.17*

ubuntu/linux-azure-fde-7.0<7.0.0-1016.16~24.04.1

7.0.0-1016.16~24.04.1

ubuntu/linux-azure-nvidia-6.14*

ubuntu/linux-gcp-6.11*

ubuntu/linux-gcp-6.14*

ubuntu/linux-gcp-7.0<7.0.0-1013.13~24.04.1

7.0.0-1013.13~24.04.1

ubuntu/linux-hwe-6.11*

ubuntu/linux-hwe-6.14*

ubuntu/linux-hwe-6.17*

ubuntu/linux-hwe-7.0<7.0.0-34.34~24.04.1

7.0.0-34.34~24.04.1

ubuntu/linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.11*

ubuntu/linux-nvidia-6.11*

ubuntu/linux-nvidia-6.17*

ubuntu/linux-nvidia-7.0<7.0.0-1024.25~24.04.1

7.0.0-1024.25~24.04.1

ubuntu/linux-oem-6.11*

ubuntu/linux-oem-6.14*

ubuntu/linux-oem-6.17*

ubuntu/linux-oem-6.8*

ubuntu/linux-oracle-6.14*

ubuntu/linux-oracle-6.17*

ubuntu/linux-oracle-7.0<7.0.0-1012.12~24.04.1

7.0.0-1012.12~24.04.1

ubuntu/linux-raspi-realtime*

ubuntu/linux-realtime*

ubuntu/linux-riscv*

ubuntu/linux-riscv-6.14*

ubuntu/linux-riscv-6.17*

ubuntu/linux-riscv-7.0<7.0.0-34.34.1~24.04.1

7.0.0-34.34.1~24.04.1

ubuntu/linux-realtime-6.14*

ubuntu/linux-realtime-6.17*

ubuntu/linux<7.0.0-34.34

7.0.0-34.34

ubuntu/linux-aws<7.0.0-1013.13

7.0.0-1013.13

ubuntu/linux-azure<7.0.0-1017.17

7.0.0-1017.17

ubuntu/linux-azure-fde<7.0.0-1016.16

7.0.0-1016.16

ubuntu/linux-gcp<7.0.0-1013.13

7.0.0-1013.13

ubuntu/linux-gke<7.0.0-1007.8

7.0.0-1007.8

ubuntu/linux-ibm<7.0.0-1014.14

7.0.0-1014.14

ubuntu/linux-nvidia*

ubuntu/linux-nvidia-bos<7.0.0-2022.23

7.0.0-2022.23

ubuntu/linux-oem-7.0<7.0.0-1014.14

7.0.0-1014.14

ubuntu/linux-oracle<7.0.0-1012.12

7.0.0-1012.12

ubuntu/linux-raspi<7.0.0-1020.20

7.0.0-1020.20

ubuntu/linux-realtime<7.0.0-34.34.1

7.0.0-34.34.1

ubuntu/linux-riscv<7.0.0-34.34.1

7.0.0-34.34.1

ubuntu/linux-vmware*

Remediation

Recommended actions to resolve this vulnerability, in priority order.

Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-aws-7.0 to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-1013.13~24.04.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-azure-7.0 to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-1017.17~24.04.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-azure-fde-7.0 to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-1016.16~24.04.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-gcp-7.0 to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-1013.13~24.04.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-hwe-7.0 to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-34.34~24.04.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-nvidia-7.0 to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-1024.25~24.04.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-oracle-7.0 to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-1012.12~24.04.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-riscv-7.0 to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-34.34.1~24.04.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-34.34
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-aws to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-1013.13
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-azure to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-1017.17
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-azure-fde to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-1016.16
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-gcp to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-1013.13
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-gke to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-1007.8
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-ibm to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-1014.14
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-nvidia-bos to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-2022.23
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-oem-7.0 to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-1014.14
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-oracle to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-1012.12
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-raspi to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-1020.20
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-realtime to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-34.34.1
Upgrade
Upgrade ubuntu/linux-riscv to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 7.0.0-34.34.1

Event History

Aug 15, 2026

CVE Published

via OSV·06:21 AM

Data Sourced

via OSV·06:21 AM

DescriptionSeverityAffected Software

Event

via OSV·06:21 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Which environments are exposed to this issue?

The issue is specific to KVM on arm64 using nested virtualization, where an L1 VNCR is mapped through a backing PFN that is read-only. A read-only memslot is given as an example of a configuration that can create this condition.

What must occur for the flaw to be triggered?

The guest must attempt to write through an L1 VNCR mapping whose backing PFN is read-only. The affected behavior results from deriving the host stage-1 mapping permissions solely from the guest stage-1 permissions without constraining them to the PFN's writability.

How does the resolved behavior handle writes to a read-only backing page?

The fix caches PFN writability in the VNCR TLB and constrains fixmap permissions accordingly. A guest write attempt to a read-only endpoint is promoted to a synchronous external abort (SEA).

UBUNTU-CVE-2026-72279: High severity ubuntu/linux-hwe-edge vulnerability

Affected Software

Remediation

Event History

Frequently Asked Questions

Which environments are exposed to this issue?

What must occur for the flaw to be triggered?

How does the resolved behavior handle writes to a read-only backing page?

Company

Resources

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