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CVE-2026-79979

Stale TLB entries after demand-paging page-out let arm64 user threads access reused physical frames

Published
2026-10-23
Last modified
2026-10-23
CNA
zephyr
NVD status
Received
CWE
CWE-416

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CVSS v3.1 (listed by NVD)
7.8
HIGH
Scored by zephyrproject.org (not yet scored by NVD)
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS v4.0 (listed by NVD)
—
Not scored
CVSS (listed by CVE.org)
7.8
HIGH
Scored by CNA (zephyr) · v3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS exploit probability
0.1%
Percentile 3.4%
as of 2026-10-24
CISA KEV
—
Not listed

Attack conditions and impact

Derived from the CNA (via NVD) CVSS 3.1 vector
LocalLoginNo interactionConditions Scope change Confidentiality HIntegrity HAvailability H
MetricValueMeaning
Attack vector AVLLocal
Attack complexity ACHHigh (conditions required)
Privileges required PRLRegular user
User interaction UINNone
Scope SCChanged (affects other components)
Confidentiality CHHigh
Integrity IHHigh
Availability AHHigh
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Description

NVD

The arm64 MMU backend invalidates a single virtual address from the TLB with invalidate_tlb_page() in arch/arm64/core/mmu.c, which issued TLBI VAE1{IS} with an operand of virt >> 12. That operand encodes the ASID in bits [63:48], so the invalidation only ever matched ASID 0 (the kernel page tables) and global entries. Memory domains, however, are allocated ASIDs starting at 1 in arch_mem_domain_init(), and every domain-private leaf created by private_map() is mapped with MT_NG, i.e. non-global. A domain's cached translation therefore survived the invalidation. All callers of invalidate_tlb_page() are demand-paging paths. When the eviction algorithm reclaims a frame, page_frame_prepare_locked() in kernel/mmu.c calls arch_mem_page_out(), which marks the kernel leaf invalid, propagates the invalid descriptor into every domain via sync_domains(), and then flushes only ASID 0. do_page_fault() immediately reuses the very same page frame for the incoming mapping through arch_mem_page_in(). A user thread that had already touched the evicted page — a k_mem_partition added with arch_mem_domain_partition_add(), or its own stack mapped by map_thread_stack() — retains a valid EL0 read/write translation to that physical frame under its own ASID. Unprivileged code running in a user thread can drive memory pressure to force eviction and then keep accessing the stale address, obtaining read and write access to whatever the kernel subsequently placed in that frame: supervisor data, another memory domain's partition, or another thread's stack. This defeats the isolation that CONFIG_USERSPACE is meant to enforce, allowing information disclosure and memory corruption up to full compromise of the system. The fix switches the implementation to TLBI VAAE1{IS}, which matches every ASID and both global and non-global entries, so no domain-tagged translation survives a page out, dirty-bit update or access-flag clear. Exploitation requires an arm64 build with both CONFIG_USERSPACE and CONFIG_DEMAND_PAGING enabled, an active backing store, and at least one demand-paged page that is also privately mapped into a user memory domain. The same commit additionally stops globalize_table() from stripping EL0 permission and non-global attributes off domain-private leaves during paging synchronization, which previously caused user threads to lose access to their own partitions and stacks.

CVSS assessments

ProviderVersionScoreVector
NVD / [email protected] (Secondary)3.17.8 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
CNA / zephyr3.17.8 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products and packages

CNA (CVE.org)

VendorProductVersions
zephyrprojectzephyr
affected: 4.3.0 … < 4.5.0
default: unaffected

Linux distribution status

Red Hat ↗ Fetching

Debian ↗

No record

Ubuntu ↗ Fetching

References (2)