CVE-2026-81627 (GCVE-0-2026-81627)
Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2026-09-18 10:54 – Updated: 2026-09-18 10:58
VLAI
EPSS
VEX
Title
Qemu-kvm: vapic writable rom alias can escape the option-rom window and expose locked smram
Summary
A flaw was found in QEMU. The VAPIC setup hypercall in hw/i386/vapic.c does not validate that the writable RAM alias remains within the option ROM window. A privileged guest user on a Q35/KVM machine can position this alias over locked SMRAM, bypassing chipset D_LCK protection and injecting code into System Management Mode memory.
Severity
6.7 (Medium)
CWE
- CWE-787 - Out-of-bounds Write
Assigner
References
3 references
| URL | Tags |
|---|---|
| https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-81627 | vdb-entryx_refsource_REDHAT |
| https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2536950 | issue-trackingx_refsource_REDHAT |
| https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/work_items/4206 |
Impacted products
8 products
| Vendor | Product | Version | CPE status | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 |
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:10
|
||
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 |
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6
|
||
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 |
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7
|
||
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 |
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8
|
||
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 |
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:9
|
||
| Red Hat | Red Hat Enterprise Linux for NVIDIA 26 |
cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux_nvidia:
|
||
| Red Hat | Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 |
cpe:/a:redhat:openshift:4
|
||
| Red Hat | Red Hat OpenStack Platform 13 (Queens) |
cpe:/a:redhat:openstack:13
|
Date Public
2026-08-26 00:00
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"value": "The VAPIC TPR optimization can be disabled by preventing the kvmvapic option ROM from loading. When using libvirt, set the following in the guest\u0027s domain XML:\n```\n\u003cfeatures\u003e\n \u003capic/\u003e\n \u003chyperv\u003e\n \u003cvapic state=\u0027off\u0027/\u003e\n \u003c/hyperv\u003e\n\u003c/features\u003e\n```\nWhen using QEMU directly, pass `-global kvmvapic.rom=off` on the command line.\n\nThis optimization is only used by 32-bit Windows guests for MMIO-based TPR register access. Linux guests, 64-bit Windows guests, and any guest using x2APIC or MSR-based TPR access are unaffected by disabling it."
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Experimental. This forecast is provided for visualization only and may change without notice. Do not use it for operational decisions.
Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.
Sightings
| Author | Source | Type | Date | Other |
|---|
Nomenclature
- Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
- Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
- Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
- Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
- Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
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The MITRE ATT&CK techniques below are AI-generated suggestions, inferred from the description of the
vulnerability by the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-classification-roberta-base
model, served locally by ML-Gateway.
They have not been verified by an analyst and are provided for guidance only.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.
Browse all ATT&CK techniques and the vulnerabilities related to each.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.
Browse all ATT&CK techniques and the vulnerabilities related to each.
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Related by attack behaviour
Vulnerabilities whose description is nearest to this one in the vector space of the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-biencoder model. This is a similarity search over the bi-encoder space (plain cosine), not a classification, and it has no measured accuracy.
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