Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-45944

HighUpdated

Published: 27 May 2026

Published
27 May 2026
Modified
16 June 2026
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0013 2.5th percentile
Risk Priority 15 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2026-45944 is a high-severity an unspecified weakness vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 2.5th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: iommu/vt-d: Clear Present bit before tearing down context entry When tearing down a context entry, the current implementation zeros the entire 128-bit entry using multiple 64-bit writes. This creates a…

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window where the hardware can fetch a "torn" entry — where some fields are already zeroed while the 'Present' bit is still set — leading to unpredictable behavior or spurious faults. While x86 provides strong write ordering, the compiler may reorder writes to the two 64-bit halves of the context entry. Even without compiler reordering, the hardware fetch is not guaranteed to be atomic with respect to multiple CPU writes. Align with the "Guidance to Software for Invalidations" in the VT-d spec (Section 6.5.3.3) by implementing the recommended ownership handshake: 1. Clear only the 'Present' (P) bit of the context entry first to signal the transition of ownership from hardware to software. 2. Use dma_wmb() to ensure the cleared bit is visible to the IOMMU. 3. Perform the required cache and context-cache invalidation to ensure hardware no longer has cached references to the entry. 4. Fully zero out the entry only after the invalidation is complete. Also, add a dma_wmb() to context_set_present() to ensure the entry is fully initialized before the 'Present' bit becomes visible.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
Why these techniques?

Kernel race in IOMMU context teardown enables local privilege escalation via hardware-visible torn entries.

Confidence: MEDIUM · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v18.1

Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
2.6.24 — 6.18.14 · 6.19 — 6.19.4

Mitigating Controls

No mitigating controls mapped yet. The per-CVE control annotator has not reached this CVE.

References