Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2026-98156

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/virtio: use the DMA API for resource backing on Xen On a Xen PV domain page addresses bear no relation to the real machine addresses the host would have to use to reach it. virtio_ring.c handles this correctly, vring_use_map_api() returns true for any xen_domain() regardless of VIRTIO_F_ACCESS_PLATFORM. virtio-gpu makes the same decision independently, but its copy looks only at the feature bit: bool use_dma_api = !virtio_has_dma_quirk(vgdev->vdev); QEMU does not set iommu_platform on virtio-vga by default, so VIRTIO_F_ACCESS_PLATFORM is not negotiated, use_dma_api is false, and virtio_gpu_object_shmem_init() describes the framebuffer's backing pages to the host with sg_phys(). Those are guest-physical addresses. In a PV domain they resolve, on the host side, to pages belonging to some other domain, so the host scans out unrelated memory. Move the decision into virtio_gpu_use_dma_api() and give it the xen_domain() check, like vring_use_map_api() has. This additionally enables the dma_sync_sgtable_for_device() calls in virtgpu_vq.c, which are required for correctness whenever swiotlb is in play. Reproduced with a Xen 4.21 PV dom0 nested inside QEMU 8.2 with virtio-vga, on both a distro 6.8 kernel and 6.18 LTS. A PVH dom0 works fine and doesn't need this fix because it is identity-mapped, only PV dom0s are affected.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.001 (3.4th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 3rd percentile — 3.4% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-98156: held from 0.001 to 0.001.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.001 · newest: 0.001 · change: +0.000

Affected products

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-98156?
CVE-2026-98156 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2026-09-25.
How severe is CVE-2026-98156?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.