Guest-memory corruption via omitted KVM dirty logging
Published May 17, 2024 · Updated Aug 5, 2026
Memory corruption in Linux KVM allows guest OS users to corrupt guest memory during live migration through an emulated atomic access. In arch/x86/kvm/x86.c, KVM's emulated CMPXCHG path writes the target guest frame but fails to mark it dirty, including when the comparison fails and the old value is written back. Reachability requires an x86 KVM guest to execute an emulated atomic operation while the host tracks dirty pages for live migration; the destination can receive stale state and run with corrupted guest memory.
Summary
What happened
Memory corruption in Linux KVM allows guest OS users to corrupt guest memory during live migration through an emulated atomic access. In arch/x86/kvm/x86.c, KVM's emulated CMPXCHG path writes the target guest frame but fails to mark it dirty, including when the comparison fails and the old value is written back. Reachability requires an x86 KVM guest to execute an emulated atomic operation while the host tracks dirty pages for live migration; the destination can receive stale state and run with corrupted guest memory.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2024-35804
- Published
- May 17, 2024
- Updated
- Aug 5, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- CWE-401, T1565.001
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- Unavailable
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 17, 2024CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 5, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=1c2361f667f3648855ceae25f1332c18413fdb9f <225d587a073584946c05c9b7651d637bd45c0c71
- Affected versionversion=1c2361f667f3648855ceae25f1332c18413fdb9f <726374dde5d608b15b9756bd52b6fc283fda7a06
- Affected versionversion=1c2361f667f3648855ceae25f1332c18413fdb9f <910c57dfa4d113aae6571c2a8b9ae8c430975902
- Affected versionversion=1c2361f667f3648855ceae25f1332c18413fdb9f <9d1b22e573a3789ed1f32033ee709106993ba551
- Affected versionversion=5.15.58 <5.15.154
- Affected versionversion=5.17.13 <5.18
- Affected versionversion=5.18.2 <5.19
- Affected versionversion=5.19
- Affected versionversion=b0f294103f4cf733e23d3f0c4e5fd58e42998921
- Affected versionversion=d97c0667c1e61ded6639117b4b9584a9c12b7e66 <a9bd6bb6f02bf7132c1ab192ba62bbfa52df7d66
- Affected versionversion=e964665cc7ca13a16992b205fce63554b9efc78b
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Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
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Technologies
Your stack
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