# CVE-2024-35804: KVM: x86: Mark target gfn of emulated atomic instruction as dirty

> KVM fails to mark guest memory as dirty during emulated atomic instructions, causing data corruption during live migration.

- **Severity:** High 8.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 17 May 2024
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2024-35804, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-35804, GHSA-x3cp-9cgr-m6gc, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-35804

## What is CVE-2024-35804?

CVE-2024-35804 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 17 May 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

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

KVM: x86: Mark target gfn of emulated atomic instruction as dirty

When emulating an atomic access on behalf of the guest, mark the target
gfn dirty if the CMPXCHG by KVM is attempted and doesn't fault.  This
fixes a bug where KVM effectively corrupts guest memory during live
migration by writing to guest memory without informing userspace that the
page is dirty.

Marking the page dirty got unintentionally dropped when KVM's emulated
CMPXCHG was converted to do a user access.  Before that, KVM explicitly
mapped the guest page into kernel memory, and marked the page dirty during
the unmap phase.

Mark the page dirty even if the CMPXCHG fails, as the old data is written
back on failure, i.e. the page is still written.  The value written is
guaranteed to be the same because the operation is atomic, but KVM's ABI
is that all writes are dirty logged regardless of the value written.  And
more importantly, that's what KVM did before the buggy commit.

Huge kudos to the folks on the Cc list (and many others), who did all the
actual work of triaging and debugging.

base-commit: 6769ea8da8a93ed4630f1ce64df6aafcaabfce64

Weakness: CWE-401 (Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-35804?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2024-35804?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2024-35804 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-35804 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2024-35804 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2024-35804 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 17 May 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-35804 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-35804/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-35804/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-35804
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-35804
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2024-35804

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-35804/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.