Vulnerability record · CVE-2025-40038 · published 28 October 2025
CVE-2025-40038: In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: SVM: Skip fastpath emulation on VM-E…
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: SVM: Skip fastpath emulation on VM-Exit if next RIP isn't valid Skip the WRMSR and HLT fastpaths in SVM's VM-Exit handler if the next RIP isn't valid, e.g. because KVM is running with nrips=false. SVM must decode and emulate to skip the instruction if the CPU doesn't provide the next RIP, and getting the instruction bytes to decode requires reading guest memory. Reading guest memory through the emulator can fault, i.e. can sleep, which is disallowed since the fastpath handlers run with IRQs disabled. BUG: sleeping function called from invalid context at ./include/linux/uaccess.h:106 in_atomic(): 1, irqs_disabled(): 1, non_block: 0, pid: 32611, name: qemu preempt_count: 1, expected: 0 INFO: lockdep is turned off. irq event stamp: 30580 hardirqs last enabled at (30579): [<ffffffffc08b2527>] vcpu_run+0x1787/0x1db0 [kvm] hardirqs last disabled at (30580): [<ffffffffb4f62e32>] __schedule+0x1e2/0xed0 softirqs last enabled at (30570): [<ffffffffb4247a64>] fpu_swap_kvm_fpstate+0x44/0x210 softirqs last disabled at (30568): [<ffffffffb4247a64>] fpu_swap_kvm_fpstate+0x44/0x210 CPU: 298 UID: 0 PID: 32611 Comm: qemu Tainted: G U 6.16.0-smp--e6c618b51cfe-sleep #782 NONE Tainted: [U]=USER Hardware name: Google Astoria-Turin/astoria, BIOS 0.20241223.2-0 01/17/2025 Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0x7d/0xb0 __might_resched+0x271/0x290 __might_fault+0x28/0x80 kvm_vcpu_read_guest_page+0x8d/0xc0 [kvm] kvm_fetch_guest_virt+0x92/0xc0 [kvm] __do_insn_fetch_bytes+0xf3/0x1e0 [kvm] x86_decode_insn+0xd1/0x1010 [kvm] x86_emulate_instruction+0x105/0x810 [kvm] __svm_skip_emulated_instruction+0xc4/0x140 [kvm_amd] handle_fastpath_invd+0xc4/0x1a0 [kvm] vcpu_run+0x11a1/0x1db0 [kvm] kvm_arch_vcpu_ioctl_run+0x5cc/0x730 [kvm] kvm_vcpu_ioctl+0x578/0x6a0 [kvm] __se_sys_ioctl+0x6d/0xb0 do_syscall_64+0x8a/0x2c0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53 RIP: 0033:0x7f479d57a94b </TASK> Note, this is essentially a reapply of commit 5c30e8101e8d ("KVM: SVM: Skip WRMSR fastpath on VM-Exit if next RIP isn't valid"), but with different justification (KVM now grabs SRCU when skipping the instruction for other reasons).
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: SVM: Skip fastpath emulation on VM-Exit if next RIP isn't valid Skip the WRMSR and HLT fastpaths in SVM's VM-Exit handler if the next RIP isn't valid, e.g. because KVM is running with nrips=false. SVM must decode and emulate to skip the instruction if the CPU doesn't provide the next RIP, and getting the instruction bytes to decode requires reading guest memory. Reading guest memory through the emulator can fault, i.e. can sleep, which is disallowed since the fastpath handlers run with IRQs disabled. BUG: sleeping function called from invalid context at ./include/linux/uaccess.h:106 in_atomic(): 1, irqs_disabled(): 1, non_block: 0, pid: 32611, name: qemu preempt_count: 1, expected: 0 INFO: lockdep is turned off. irq event stamp: 30580 hardirqs last enabled at (30579): [<ffffffffc08b2527>] vcpu_run+0x1787/0x1db0 [kvm] hardirqs last disabled at (30580): [<ffffffffb4f62e32>] __schedule+0x1e2/0xed0 softirqs last enabled at (30570): [<ffffffffb4247a64>] fpu_swap_kvm_fpstate+0x44/0x210 softirqs last disabled at (30568): [<ffffffffb4247a64>] fpu_swap_kvm_fpstate+0x44/0x210 CPU: 298 UID: 0 PID: 32611 Comm: qemu Tainted: G U 6.16.0-smp--e6c618b51cfe-sleep #782 NONE Tainted: [U]=USER Hardware name: Google Astoria-Turin/astoria, BIOS 0.20241223.2-0 01/17/2025 Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0x7d/0xb0 __might_resched+0x271/0x290 __might_fault+0x28/0x80 kvm_vcpu_read_guest_page+0x8d/0xc0 [kvm] kvm_fetch_guest_virt+0x92/0xc0 [kvm] __do_insn_fetch_bytes+0xf3/0x1e0 [kvm] x86_decode_insn+0xd1/0x1010 [kvm] x86_emulate_instruction+0x105/0x810 [kvm] __svm_skip_emulated_instruction+0xc4/0x140 [kvm_amd] handle_fastpath_invd+0xc4/0x1a0 [kvm] vcpu_run+0x11a1/0x1db0 [kvm] kvm_arch_vcpu_ioctl_run+0x5cc/0x730 [kvm] kvm_vcpu_ioctl+0x578/0x6a0 [kvm] __se_sys_ioctl+0x6d/0xb0 do_syscall_64+0x8a/0x2c0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53 RIP: 0033:0x7f479d57a94b </TASK> Note, this is essentially a reapply of commit 5c30e8101e8d ("KVM: SVM: Skip WRMSR fastpath on VM-Exit if next RIP isn't valid"), but with different justification (KVM now grabs SRCU when skipping the instruction for other reasons).
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
References
Track CVE-2025-40038 inside VULONE
Watch it alongside the ransomware crews, C2 infrastructure and forum chatter that reference it, query it through the API and pull it into your SIEM over TAXII.
Source: NIST National Vulnerability Database (record CVE-2025-40038), CISA KEV, FIRST EPSS (scores of 2026-09-26). This page is refreshed as NVD updates the record.
