CVE-2024-53135 (GCVE-0-2024-53135)
Vulnerability from cvelistv5
Published
2024-12-04 14:20
Modified
2026-08-05 11:43
Severity ?
8.8 (High) - CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: VMX: Bury Intel PT virtualization (guest/host mode) behind CONFIG_BROKEN Hide KVM's pt_mode module param behind CONFIG_BROKEN, i.e. disable support for virtualizing Intel PT via guest/host mode unless BROKEN=y. There are myriad bugs in the implementation, some of which are fatal to the guest, and others which put the stability and health of the host at risk. For guest fatalities, the most glaring issue is that KVM fails to ensure tracing is disabled, and *stays* disabled prior to VM-Enter, which is necessary as hardware disallows loading (the guest's) RTIT_CTL if tracing is enabled (enforced via a VMX consistency check). Per the SDM: If the logical processor is operating with Intel PT enabled (if IA32_RTIT_CTL.TraceEn = 1) at the time of VM entry, the "load IA32_RTIT_CTL" VM-entry control must be 0. On the host side, KVM doesn't validate the guest CPUID configuration provided by userspace, and even worse, uses the guest configuration to decide what MSRs to save/load at VM-Enter and VM-Exit. E.g. configuring guest CPUID to enumerate more address ranges than are supported in hardware will result in KVM trying to passthrough, save, and load non-existent MSRs, which generates a variety of WARNs, ToPA ERRORs in the host, a potential deadlock, etc.
References
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version
Linux Linux Version: f99e3daf94ff35dd4a878d32ff66e1fd35223ad6
Version: f99e3daf94ff35dd4a878d32ff66e1fd35223ad6
Version: f99e3daf94ff35dd4a878d32ff66e1fd35223ad6
Version: f99e3daf94ff35dd4a878d32ff66e1fd35223ad6
Version: f99e3daf94ff35dd4a878d32ff66e1fd35223ad6
Version: f99e3daf94ff35dd4a878d32ff66e1fd35223ad6
Version: f99e3daf94ff35dd4a878d32ff66e1fd35223ad6
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          "dateUpdated": "2025-11-03T22:29:37.797Z",
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            "url": "https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/03/msg00002.html"
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            "url": "https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/01/msg00001.html"
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      "descriptions": [
        {
          "lang": "en",
          "value": "In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\nKVM: VMX: Bury Intel PT virtualization (guest/host mode) behind CONFIG_BROKEN\n\nHide KVM\u0027s pt_mode module param behind CONFIG_BROKEN, i.e. disable support\nfor virtualizing Intel PT via guest/host mode unless BROKEN=y.  There are\nmyriad bugs in the implementation, some of which are fatal to the guest,\nand others which put the stability and health of the host at risk.\n\nFor guest fatalities, the most glaring issue is that KVM fails to ensure\ntracing is disabled, and *stays* disabled prior to VM-Enter, which is\nnecessary as hardware disallows loading (the guest\u0027s) RTIT_CTL if tracing\nis enabled (enforced via a VMX consistency check).  Per the SDM:\n\n  If the logical processor is operating with Intel PT enabled (if\n  IA32_RTIT_CTL.TraceEn = 1) at the time of VM entry, the \"load\n  IA32_RTIT_CTL\" VM-entry control must be 0.\n\nOn the host side, KVM doesn\u0027t validate the guest CPUID configuration\nprovided by userspace, and even worse, uses the guest configuration to\ndecide what MSRs to save/load at VM-Enter and VM-Exit.  E.g. configuring\nguest CPUID to enumerate more address ranges than are supported in hardware\nwill result in KVM trying to passthrough, save, and load non-existent MSRs,\nwhich generates a variety of WARNs, ToPA ERRORs in the host, a potential\ndeadlock, etc."
        }
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "cvssV3_1": {
            "baseScore": 8.8,
            "baseSeverity": "HIGH",
            "vectorString": "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H",
            "version": "3.1"
          },
          "scenarios": [
            {
              "lang": "en",
              "value": "AV:L - The vulnerability is reached through local `/dev/kvm` ioctls (`KVM_SET_CPUID2`, `KVM_SET_MSRS`, `KVM_RUN`) and guest WRMSRs to RTIT MSRs; no network or adjacent-network path exists.\nAC:L - Scoring the vulnerable configuration (`pt_mode=1`) as present per CVSS practice, the trigger is a fixed, fully deterministic ioctl sequence \u2014 set CPUID leaf 0x14.1 EAX[2:0]=7, set RTIT_CTL.TraceEn, run the vCPU \u2014 with no race to win and no memory-layout condition outside the attacker\u0027s control.\nPR:L - The attacker needs access to `/dev/kvm`, which is routinely granted to unprivileged accounts (the `kvm` group, the unprivileged `qemu`/`libvirt-qemu` user, jailed VMMs such as crosvm/Firecracker, nested-virt cloud tenants) \u2014 no root or CAP_SYS_ADMIN is required.\nUI:N - The attacker performs the entire sequence within its own VM; no action by any other user or administrator is needed once the host is running with `pt_mode=1`.\nS:C - The bug lives on the KVM virtualization boundary \u2014 a confined VM/VMM corrupts host kernel memory and destabilizes the host, and conversely host PT activity kills unrelated guests via VM-entry consistency-check failures, so impact crosses the guest/host security authority.\nC:H - `pt_load_msr()` reads `addr_a[]/addr_b[]` past the end of `pt_ctx` (out-of-bounds read of adjacent `struct vcpu_vmx` state), the guest gains passthrough read access to MSRs 0x588\u20130x58D, and the resulting heap corruption of a live `perf_event *` in `lbr_desc` is leverageable for host memory disclosure.\nI:H - `pt_save_msr()` performs an out-of-bounds write of up to 24 bytes past `pt_desc` into `lbr_desc`, overwriting `struct x86_pmu_lbr records` and a kernel `struct perf_event *` pointer that is later dereferenced by the LBR virtualization code \u2014 kernel object corruption in the KVM run path.\nA:H - The maintainer documents host WARN storms, ToPA ERRORs and a potential deadlock issued from the IRQ-disabled `vmx_vcpu_run()` fast path, plus VM-entry consistency-check failures that are fatal to running guests \u2014 i.e. host hang and VM crash."
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "providerMetadata": {
        "dateUpdated": "2026-08-05T11:43:59.446Z",
        "orgId": "416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67",
        "shortName": "Linux"
      },
      "references": [
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c3742319d021f5aa3a0a8c828485fee14753f6de"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d4b42f926adcce4e5ec193c714afd9d37bba8e5b"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b8a1d572478b6f239061ee9578b2451bf2f021c2"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e6716f4230a8784957273ddd27326264b27b9313"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d28b059ee4779b5102c5da6e929762520510e406"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b91bb0ce5cd7005b376eac690ec664c1b56372ec"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/aa0d42cacf093a6fcca872edc954f6f812926a17"
        }
      ],
      "title": "KVM: VMX: Bury Intel PT virtualization (guest/host mode) behind CONFIG_BROKEN",
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    "assignerShortName": "Linux",
    "cveId": "CVE-2024-53135",
    "datePublished": "2024-12-04T14:20:40.815Z",
    "dateReserved": "2024-11-19T17:17:24.996Z",
    "dateUpdated": "2026-08-05T11:43:59.446Z",
    "state": "PUBLISHED"
  },
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}


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