CVE-2026-43265 KVM: x86: Ignore -EBUSY when checking nested events from vcpu_block()

What is CVE-2026-43265?

CVE-2026-43265 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 6 May 2026. 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: Ignore -EBUSY when checking nested events from vcpu_block()

Ignore -EBUSY when checking nested events after exiting a blocking state while L2 is active, as exiting to userspace will generate a spurious userspace exit, usually with KVM_EXIT_UNKNOWN, and likely lead to the VM's demise. Continuing with the wakeup isn't perfect either, as *something* has gone sideways if a vCPU is awakened in L2 with an injected event (or worse, a nested run pending), but continuing on gives the VM a decent chance of surviving without any major side effects.

As explained in the Fixes commits, it _should_ be impossible for a vCPU to be put into a blocking state with an already-injected event (exception, IRQ, or NMI). Unfortunately, userspace can stuff MP_STATE and/or injected events, and thus put the vCPU into what should be an impossible state.

Don't bother trying to preserve the WARN, e.g. with an anti-syzkaller Kconfig, as WARNs can (hopefully) be added in paths where _KVM_ would be violating x86 architecture, e.g. by WARNing if KVM attempts to inject an exception or interrupt while the vCPU isn't running.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-43265?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-43265?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2026-43265 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-43265 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-43265, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-43265, GHSA-p7j5-r5cq-h6qj, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2026-43265, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-43265.