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No exploitation reported

CVE-2026-98440

KVM: arm64: nv: Delay freeing of shadow S2 structures until VM destruction

No exploitation reported by the sources we read.

  • Published2026-10-18

Am I affected?

With a domain, we read the version its public headers and pages expose. A distribution build can carry the fix under an older number.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: arm64: nv: Delay freeing of shadow S2 structures until VM destruction We free the shadow S2 structures from kvm_arch_flush_shadow_all(), which is a Bad Idea(tm). Freeing the page tables is fair game (this is what this callback is for), but freeing the container that could still be referenced by another part of the system is not great. Instead, grow separate destructors that gets called when we tear the VM down for good. From there, we can nuke both the individual MMUs as well as the global array that points to them, safe in the knowledge that the vcpus themselves have been destroyed already.

Timeline

dates in UTC
  1. 2026-10-1816:16CVE publishedNVD

Observed activity

isMalicious corpus · updated 2026-10-24 15:37 UTC
Indicators tagged with this CVE, per day0 indicators over 7 days
Block these indicators
  • Firewall list (EDL, text): https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2026-98440?format=txt
  • CSV export: https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2026-98440?format=csv
  • TAXII collection of exploited CVEs
  • The EDL and CSV take an API key on the Pro plan.

Versions per branch

Distribution builds and vendor advisories

Packages from OSV.dev and products from the vendors' CSAF advisories.

version not verifiedVersions not verified: read as OSV.dev and the vendors publish them, not checked against each vendor's release list.

Vendor advisories

  • CVE-2026-98440 Red Hat Product Security184 known affected

    kernel: KVM: arm64: nv: Delay freeing of shadow S2 structures until VM destruction

    kernel as a component of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 · kernel-64k as a component of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 · kernel-64k-core as a component of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 · +181 more

Full record on NVD

Fix

  1. No fix available, says the vendor Red Hat Product Security CVE-2026-98440 · 184 productsFix deferred

Detection

Nuclei template
none so far
ProjectDiscovery
Exploit-DB
no entry
Exploit-DB
Proof-of-concept repositories
none listed
PoC-in-GitHub

Sources

  • NVDCVE recordread 2026-10-24
  • CNACVSS 3.17read 2026-10-24
  • FIRST EPSSEPSS score0.2 %2026-10-23

Technical details

CVSS v3 Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Published
2026-10-18
Last Modified
2026-10-24
NVD status
Received

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-98440?

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: arm64: nv: Delay freeing of shadow S2 structures until VM destruction We free the shadow S2 structures from kvm_arch_flush_shadow_all(), which is a Bad Idea(tm). Freeing the page tables is fair game (this is what this callback is for), but freeing the container that could still be referenced by another part of the system is not great. Instead, grow separate destructors that gets called when we tear the VM down for good. From there, we can nuke both the individual MMUs as well as the global array that points to them, safe in the knowledge that the vcpus themselves have been destroyed already.

Is CVE-2026-98440 actively exploited?

Active exploitation of CVE-2026-98440 has not been confirmed. Its EPSS score was 0.2% on 2026-10-23, the estimated probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2026-98440?

CVE-2026-98440 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7 (HIGH severity), with vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

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