CVE-2025-37936 (GCVE-0-2025-37936)
Vulnerability from cvelistv5
Published
2025-05-20 15:22
Modified
2026-08-05 11:58
Severity ?
8.7 (High) - CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:H
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: perf/x86/intel: KVM: Mask PEBS_ENABLE loaded for guest with vCPU's value. When generating the MSR_IA32_PEBS_ENABLE value that will be loaded on VM-Entry to a KVM guest, mask the value with the vCPU's desired PEBS_ENABLE value. Consulting only the host kernel's host vs. guest masks results in running the guest with PEBS enabled even when the guest doesn't want to use PEBS. Because KVM uses perf events to proxy the guest virtual PMU, simply looking at exclude_host can't differentiate between events created by host userspace, and events created by KVM on behalf of the guest. Running the guest with PEBS unexpectedly enabled typically manifests as crashes due to a near-infinite stream of #PFs. E.g. if the guest hasn't written MSR_IA32_DS_AREA, the CPU will hit page faults on address '0' when trying to record PEBS events. The issue is most easily reproduced by running `perf kvm top` from before commit 7b100989b4f6 ("perf evlist: Remove __evlist__add_default") (after which, `perf kvm top` effectively stopped using PEBS). The userspace side of perf creates a guest-only PEBS event, which intel_guest_get_msrs() misconstrues a guest-*owned* PEBS event. Arguably, this is a userspace bug, as enabling PEBS on guest-only events simply cannot work, and userspace can kill VMs in many other ways (there is no danger to the host). However, even if this is considered to be bad userspace behavior, there's zero downside to perf/KVM restricting PEBS to guest-owned events. Note, commit 854250329c02 ("KVM: x86/pmu: Disable guest PEBS temporarily in two rare situations") fixed the case where host userspace is profiling KVM *and* userspace, but missed the case where userspace is profiling only KVM.
References
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version
Linux Linux Version: c59a1f106f5cd4843c097069ff1bb2ad72103a67
Version: c59a1f106f5cd4843c097069ff1bb2ad72103a67
Version: c59a1f106f5cd4843c097069ff1bb2ad72103a67
Version: c59a1f106f5cd4843c097069ff1bb2ad72103a67
Version: c59a1f106f5cd4843c097069ff1bb2ad72103a67
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          "value": "In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\nperf/x86/intel: KVM: Mask PEBS_ENABLE loaded for guest with vCPU\u0027s value.\n\nWhen generating the MSR_IA32_PEBS_ENABLE value that will be loaded on\nVM-Entry to a KVM guest, mask the value with the vCPU\u0027s desired PEBS_ENABLE\nvalue.  Consulting only the host kernel\u0027s host vs. guest masks results in\nrunning the guest with PEBS enabled even when the guest doesn\u0027t want to use\nPEBS.  Because KVM uses perf events to proxy the guest virtual PMU, simply\nlooking at exclude_host can\u0027t differentiate between events created by host\nuserspace, and events created by KVM on behalf of the guest.\n\nRunning the guest with PEBS unexpectedly enabled typically manifests as\ncrashes due to a near-infinite stream of #PFs.  E.g. if the guest hasn\u0027t\nwritten MSR_IA32_DS_AREA, the CPU will hit page faults on address \u00270\u0027 when\ntrying to record PEBS events.\n\nThe issue is most easily reproduced by running `perf kvm top` from before\ncommit 7b100989b4f6 (\"perf evlist: Remove __evlist__add_default\") (after\nwhich, `perf kvm top` effectively stopped using PEBS).\tThe userspace side\nof perf creates a guest-only PEBS event, which intel_guest_get_msrs()\nmisconstrues a guest-*owned* PEBS event.\n\nArguably, this is a userspace bug, as enabling PEBS on guest-only events\nsimply cannot work, and userspace can kill VMs in many other ways (there\nis no danger to the host).  However, even if this is considered to be bad\nuserspace behavior, there\u0027s zero downside to perf/KVM restricting PEBS to\nguest-owned events.\n\nNote, commit 854250329c02 (\"KVM: x86/pmu: Disable guest PEBS temporarily\nin two rare situations\") fixed the case where host userspace is profiling\nKVM *and* userspace, but missed the case where userspace is profiling only\nKVM."
        }
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              "value": "AV:L - Exploitation requires a local `perf_event_open()` syscall on the virtualization host to create a guest-only PEBS event; there is no network-reachable path to `intel_guest_get_msrs()`.\nAC:L - The attacker deterministically creates an `exclude_host` + `precise_ip` event and the miscomputed `MSR_IA32_PEBS_ENABLE` guest value is then loaded on every VM-entry on that CPU \u2014 no race, no memory-layout dependency, and `pebs_ept` hardware (Icelake-X and later) is the standard CPU generation for KVM hosts.\nPR:L - `exclude_host` and `precise_ip` carry no capability check in `perf_event_open()`, so an unprivileged local user can create the triggering event per-task against a vCPU thread, or system-wide on the many hosts running `perf_event_paranoid \u003c= 0`.\nUI:N - No victim action is needed \u2014 the buggy MSR list is rebuilt automatically on every VM-entry of the already-running guests on the host.\nS:C - The defect is in the host kernel\u0027s perf/KVM code but the impact crosses the host/guest boundary into guest VMs, which are a distinct security authority the attacking host user has no privileges over.\nC:L - PEBS records generated for a host-owned counter are deposited into guest-readable memory and spurious PEBS PMIs are injected into the guest, and records overshooting the entry boundary can carry host-context register/RIP data across into the guest \u2014 a bounded rather than arbitrary disclosure.\nI:H - The hardware writes PEBS records into guest memory at a DS_AREA the guest never armed for PEBS \u2014 the kernel\u0027s own comment states such writes \"corrupt guest memory\" \u2014 giving uncontrolled corruption of guest kernel structures that can be leveraged against the guest\u0027s integrity.\nA:H - The documented and reported manifestation is a near-infinite stream of #PFs that crashes or hangs the guest, denying service to every VM the attacker\u0027s event overlaps while also burning the host CPU in an entry/exit loop."
            }
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        "orgId": "416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67",
        "shortName": "Linux"
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      "references": [
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/160153cf9e4aa875ad086cc094ce34aac8e13d63"
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        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/34b6fa11431aef71045ae5a00d90a7d630597eda"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/44ee0afc9d1e7a7c1932698de01362ed80cfc4b5"
        },
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          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/86aa62895fc2fb7ab09d7ca40fae8ad09841f66b"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/58f6217e5d0132a9f14e401e62796916aa055c1b"
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      "title": "perf/x86/intel: KVM: Mask PEBS_ENABLE loaded for guest with vCPU\u0027s value.",
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    "assignerShortName": "Linux",
    "cveId": "CVE-2025-37936",
    "datePublished": "2025-05-20T15:22:00.557Z",
    "dateReserved": "2025-04-16T04:51:23.971Z",
    "dateUpdated": "2026-08-05T11:58:29.520Z",
    "state": "PUBLISHED"
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