CVE-2026-72280 KVM: arm64: nv: Drop bogus WARN for write to ZCR_EL2
A guest can trigger a hypervisor panic by writing to a specific system register in nested virtualization, causing a denial of service.
- 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-2026-72280?
CVE-2026-72280 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 15 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:
KVM: arm64: nv: Drop bogus WARN for write to ZCR_EL2
It is entirely possible for a guest to write to the ZCR_EL2 sysreg alias while in a nested context, as it is expected if FEAT_NV2 is advertised to the L1 hypervisor.
Get rid of the bogus WARN which, since the hyp vectors were installed at this point, has the effect of a hyp_panic...
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-72280?
How do I fix CVE-2026-72280?
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-2026-72280 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-72280 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-72280, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-72280, GHSA-pjc6-4q26-frjf, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-72280.