Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

KVM: VMX: Bury Intel PT virtualization (guest/host mode) behind CONFIG_BROKEN

Hide KVM's pt_mode module param behind CONFIG_BROKEN, i.e. disable support
for virtualizing Intel PT via guest/host mode unless BROKEN=y. There are
myriad bugs in the implementation, some of which are fatal to the guest,
and others which put the stability and health of the host at risk.

For guest fatalities, the most glaring issue is that KVM fails to ensure
tracing is disabled, and *stays* disabled prior to VM-Enter, which is
necessary as hardware disallows loading (the guest's) RTIT_CTL if tracing
is enabled (enforced via a VMX consistency check). Per the SDM:

If the logical processor is operating with Intel PT enabled (if
IA32_RTIT_CTL.TraceEn = 1) at the time of VM entry, the "load
IA32_RTIT_CTL" VM-entry control must be 0.

On the host side, KVM doesn't validate the guest CPUID configuration
provided by userspace, and even worse, uses the guest configuration to
decide what MSRs to save/load at VM-Enter and VM-Exit. E.g. configuring
guest CPUID to enumerate more address ranges than are supported in hardware
will result in KVM trying to passthrough, save, and load non-existent MSRs,
which generates a variety of WARNs, ToPA ERRORs in the host, a potential
deadlock, etc.

Classification

CVE ID: CVE-2024-53135

CVSS Base Severity: LOW

CVSS Base Score: 0.0

Affected Products

Vendor: Linux

Product: Linux

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

EPSS Score: 0.04% (probability of being exploited)

EPSS Percentile: 5.06% (scored less or equal to compared to others)

EPSS Date: 2025-02-03 (when was this score calculated)

References

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e6716f4230a8784957273ddd27326264b27b9313
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d28b059ee4779b5102c5da6e929762520510e406
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b91bb0ce5cd7005b376eac690ec664c1b56372ec
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/aa0d42cacf093a6fcca872edc954f6f812926a17

Timeline