CVE-2026-79610 grant-table: double version change race
A race condition in Xen grant table version changes can lead to stale pointers, potentially allowing code execution or privilege escalation.
- 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-2026-79610?
CVE-2026-79610 is a high-severity vulnerability in Xen, published on 13 Oct 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
XSA-501 was about issues with v1 -> v2 and v2 -> v1 changes racing certain other grant table operations. Sadly a v2 -> v1 -> v2 change has yet another effect which wasn't accounted for: During the first change, status pages would be freed. During the second change they would be allocated again. Hence across the full pair of change the addresses of the status pages may change, rendering stale previously calculated pointers into the status array.
Weakness: CWE-362
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-79610?
How do I fix CVE-2026-79610?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2026-79610 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-79610 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as ALPINE-CVE-2026-79610, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-79610, GHSA-mm4r-fcq9-pfr4, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-79610.