CVE-2026-68480 x86/bugs: Make Safe-RET robust against interrupt injection
An attacker can inject interrupts to bypass Safe-RET mitigations, potentially leaking sensitive data via speculative execution.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-68480?
CVE-2026-68480 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 6 Aug 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:
x86/bugs: Make Safe-RET robust against interrupt injection
An attacker injecting interrupts while the Safe-RET mitigation executes on machines affected by SRSO can neutralize the safe return sequence, potentially leading to data leakage through speculative execution.
Fixup register state as if the Safe-RET sequence executed successfully by "emulating" it, in a manner of speaking, and avoid executing a RET instruction after returning from the interrupt.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-68480?
How do I fix CVE-2026-68480?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2026-68480 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-68480 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-68480, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-68480, GHSA-76mh-mwm6-543c, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-68480.