CVE-2026-72286 KVM: SEV: Do not allow intra-host migration/mirroring of SNP VMs
Attackers could exploit incomplete SEV-SNP VM migration features to cause state inconsistencies or undefined behavior in virtualized environments.
- 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
What is CVE-2026-72286?
CVE-2026-72286 is a high-severity 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: SEV: Do not allow intra-host migration/mirroring of SNP VMs
The intra-host migration/mirroring feature is not fully implemented for SEV-SNP VMs. The proper migration requires additional SNP-specific state such as guest_req_mutex, guest_req_buf, and guest_resp_buf to be transferred or initialized on the destination.
The SNP VM mirroring requires vmsa features to be copied as well otherwise ASID would be bound to SNP range while VM is detected as a SEV VM.
Reject SNP source VMs in migration/mirroring until proper SNP state transfer is implemented.
[sean: let lines poke past 80 chars, tag for stable]
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-72286?
How do I fix CVE-2026-72286?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2026-72286 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-72286 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-72286, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-72286, GHSA-ghw4-q5h4-h5hf, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-72286.