HIGH
arm64 PageTable Invalid Leaf Deref
CVE-2026-31600
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
KernelScan AI7.5HIGH
01Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: arm64: mm: Handle invalid large leaf mappings correctly It has been possible for a long time to mark ptes in the linear map as invalid. This is done for secretmem, kfence, realm dma memory un/share, and others, by simply clearing the PTE_VALID bit. But until commit a166563e7ec37 ("arm64: mm: support large block mapping when rodata=full") large leaf mappings were never made invalid in this way. It turns out various parts of the code base are not equipped to handle invalid large leaf mappings (in the way they are currently encoded) and I've observed a kernel panic while booting a realm guest on a BBML2_NOABORT system as a result: [ 15.432706] software IO TLB: Memory encryption is active and system is using DMA bounce buffers [ 15.476896] Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address ffff000019600000 [ 15.513762] Mem abort info: [ 15.527245] ESR = 0x0000000096000046 [ 15.548553] EC = 0x25: DABT (current EL), IL = 32 bits [ 15.572146] SET = 0, FnV = 0 [ 15.592141] EA = 0, S1PTW = 0 [ 15.612694] FSC = 0x06: level 2 translation fault [ 15.640644] Data abort info: [ 15.661983] ISV = 0, ISS = 0x00000046, ISS2 = 0x00000000 [ 15.694875] CM = 0, WnR = 1, TnD = 0, TagAccess = 0 [ 15.723740] GCS = 0, Overlay = 0, DirtyBit = 0, Xs = 0 [ 15.755776] swapper pgtable: 4k pages, 48-bit VAs, pgdp=0000000081f3f000 [ 15.800410] [ffff000019600000] pgd=0000000000000000, p4d=180000009ffff403, pud=180000009fffe403, pmd=00e8000199600704 [ 15.855046] Internal error: Oops: 0000000096000046 [#1] SMP [ 15.886394] Modules linked in: [ 15.900029] CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 7.0.0-rc4-dirty #4 PREEMPT [ 15.935258] Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT) [ 15.955612] pstate: 21400005 (nzCv daif +PAN -UAO -TCO +DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--) [ 15.986009] pc : __pi_memcpy_generic+0x128/0x22c [ 16.006163] lr : swiotlb_bounce+0xf4/0x158 [ 16.024145] sp : ffff80008000b8f0 [ 16.038896] x29: ffff80008000b8f0 x28: 0000000000000000 x27: 0000000000000000 [ 16.069953] x26: ffffb3976d261ba8 x25: 0000000000000000 x24: ffff000019600000 [ 16.100876] x23: 0000000000000001 x22: ffff0000043430d0 x21: 0000000000007ff0 [ 16.131946] x20: 0000000084570010 x19: 0000000000000000 x18: ffff00001ffe3fcc [ 16.163073] x17: 0000000000000000 x16: 00000000003fffff x15: 646e612065766974 [ 16.194131] x14: 0000000000000000 x13: 0000000000000000 x12: 0000000000000000 [ 16.225059] x11: 0000000000000000 x10: 0000000000000010 x9 : 0000000000000018 [ 16.256113] x8 : 0000000000000018 x7 : 0000000000000000 x6 : 0000000000000000 [ 16.287203] x5 : ffff000019607ff0 x4 : ffff000004578000 x3 : ffff000019600000 [ 16.318145] x2 : 0000000000007ff0 x1 : ffff000004570010 x0 : ffff000019600000 [ 16.349071] Call trace: [ 16.360143] __pi_memcpy_generic+0x128/0x22c (P) [ 16.380310] swiotlb_tbl_map_single+0x154/0x2b4 [ 16.400282] swiotlb_map+0x5c/0x228 [ 16.415984] dma_map_phys+0x244/0x2b8 [ 16.432199] dma_map_page_attrs+0x44/0x58 [ 16.449782] virtqueue_map_page_attrs+0x38/0x44 [ 16.469596] virtqueue_map_single_attrs+0xc0/0x130 [ 16.490509] virtnet_rq_alloc.isra.0+0xa4/0x1fc [ 16.510355] try_fill_recv+0x2a4/0x584 [ 16.526989] virtnet_open+0xd4/0x238 [ 16.542775] __dev_open+0x110/0x24c [ 16.558280] __dev_change_flags+0x194/0x20c [ 16.576879] netif_change_flags+0x24/0x6c [ 16.594489] dev_change_flags+0x48/0x7c [ 16.611462] ip_auto_config+0x258/0x1114 [ 16.628727] do_one_initcall+0x80/0x1c8 [ 16.645590] kernel_init_freeable+0x208/0x2f0 [ 16.664917] kernel_init+0x24/0x1e0 [ 16.680295] ret_from_fork+0x10/0x20 [ 16.696369] Code: 927cec03 cb0e0021 8b0e0042 a9411c26 (a900340c) [ 16.723106] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- [ 16.752866] Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init! exitcode=0x0000000b [ 16.792556] Kernel Offset: 0x3396ea200000 from 0xffff8000800000 ---truncated---
02KernelScan AI Analysis
Risk summary
This vulnerability causes kernel panics on ARM64 systems when certain memory management features interact with large block mappings. The crash occurs during boot or normal operations when DMA operations attempt to access invalidated large leaf mappings, resulting in system instability and denial of service. While not directly exploitable for privilege escalation, it can cause reliable system crashes in environments using affected ARM64 features.
Vulnerability analysis
Root Cause: The ARM64 memory management code was not properly handling invalid large leaf page table mappings. When large block mappings were made invalid (by clearing PTE_VALID bit) for features like secretmem, kfence, or realm DMA memory sharing, various parts of the kernel would fail to recognize these as leaf mappings because pmd_sect() only returns true for valid entries. This caused the invalid large leaf entries to be ignored during subsequent operations, leading to translation faults when the memory was accessed.
Attack Surface: This vulnerability affects ARM64 systems with FEAT_BBM level 2 support when using features that invalidate large block mappings (secretmem, kfence, realm DMA operations). The crash occurs during normal kernel operations like DMA mapping, making it reachable through various kernel subsystems including network drivers and storage operations.
Fix Mechanism: The fix introduces a 'present-invalid' encoding for kernel mappings using PTE_PRESENT_INVALID (aliased to PTE_NG). This allows invalid large leaf mappings to still be recognized as leaf mappings by pmd_leaf(). The patch updates pageattr functions to use pmd_leaf() instead of pmd_sect(), adds proper handling in split_pmd()/split_pud() to preserve present-invalid state, and updates the transitional page table code to correctly handle present-invalid mappings during kexec/hibernate operations.
03Fix Versions
| Branch | Fixed in | Patch commit |
|---|---|---|
| 6.18 | 6.18.24 | 8140b21d1901 |
| 6.19 | 6.19.14 | 747b6482e4e2 |
| 7.0 | 7.0.1 | cbea627ea634 |
| mainline | 7.1-rc1 | 15bfba1ad77f |