CVE-2026-79603

Publication date 8 September 2026

Last updated 9 September 2026


Ubuntu priority

Description

x86 PV guests can free memory pages while still keeping a stale TLB entry pointing to them. A TLB flush is only issued by Xen (if needed) when the page is re-used. Since it's possible for the page to be scrubbed ahead of the TLB flush, there's a window where a PV guest can modify an already scrubbed page. Deployments using `xsm=silo scrub-domheap` with the aim of not allowing the exchange of information amongst guests are not effective in the presence of PV guests. All Xen versions from 4.13 onwards are vulnerable. Xen versions 4.12 and earlier are not vulnerable as they lack the `scrub-domheap` command line option. Only x86 PV guests can exploit the vulnerability.

Read the notes from the security team

Status

Package Ubuntu Release Status
xen 26.04 LTS resolute
Needs evaluation
24.04 LTS noble
Needs evaluation
22.04 LTS jammy
Needs evaluation
20.04 LTS focal
Needs evaluation
18.04 LTS bionic
Needs evaluation
16.04 LTS xenial
Needs evaluation

Notes


mdeslaur

hypervisor packages are in universe. For issues in the hypervisor, add appropriate tags to each section, ex: Tags_xen: universe-binary


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