# CVE-2026-80853: KVM: SEV: Allocate full pages for {DE,EN}CRYPT ops on SNP-enabled hosts

> A local attacker with high privileges can cause a kernel crash on SEV-SNP enabled hosts by triggering RMP violations during guest memory encryption operations.

- **Severity:** Not scored
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** An administrator
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 4 Sep 2026
- **Updated:** 19 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-g73p-24rg-vmh3, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-80853

## What is CVE-2026-80853?

CVE-2026-80853 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 4 Sep 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: Allocate full pages for {DE,EN}CRYPT ops on SNP-enabled hosts

When {de,en}crypting memory of an SEV or SEV-ES guest on an SNP-enabled
host via a temporary buffer, allocate a full 4KiB page for the buffer to
ensure the page containing the buffer is wholly owned by KVM, i.e. won't
be concurrently allocated and accessed by other kernel code while KVM is
using the buffer to {de,en}crypt memory.  On SNP-enabled platforms, when
sending SEV/SEV-ES commands that trigger firmware writes to memory, the
to-be-written page(s) must be (temporarily) assigned to Firmware (as
required by the SNP architecture, to guard against using such commands as
gadgets to attack SNP guests).  See snp_map_cmd_buf_desc() and friends.

Unfortunately, transferring ownership of a page to Firmware makes the page
inaccessible to software, and thus writes generate RMP #PF violations.  If
KVM uses a sub-page allocation for its temporary buffer, some other actor
in the kernel can allocate and use the other portions of the page, and thus
trigger unexpected (and seemingly spurious) RMP #PF violations due to
software attempting to access a Firmware-owned page.

  BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ffff906ae30f0300
  #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode
  #PF: error_code(0x80000003) - RMP violation
  PGD 6b1b80d067 P4D 6b1b80d067 PUD 100231e2063 PMD 10055a88063 PTE 80000100630f0163
  SEV-SNP: PFN 0x100630f0 unassigned, dumping non-zero entries in 2M PFN region: [0x10063000 - 0x10063200]
  Oops: Oops: 0003 [#1] SMP
  CPU: 70 UID: 0 PID: 10658 Comm: svw_WaiterThrea Tainted: G     U  W  O        7.1.0-smp--c22293789940-seanjc-next #1 PREEMPTLAZY
  Tainted: [U]=USER, [W]=WARN, [O]=OOT_MODULE
  Hardware name: Google, Inc.                                                       Arcadia_IT_80/Arcadia_IT_80, BIOS 34.86.0-102 01/25/2026
  RIP: 0010:memset+0xf/0x20
  Call Trace:
   <TASK>
   __kvmalloc_node_noprof+0x2a4/0x710
   do_getxattr+0x4e/0x130
   path_getxattrat+0x125/0x1b0
   do_syscall_64+0x10a/0x480
   entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53
  RIP: 0033:0x7f3a22cb6daa
   </TASK>
  Modules linked in: kvm_amd kvm irqbypass vfat fat ccp k10temp sha3 libsha3 i2c_piix4 gq(O) cdc_acm xhci_pci xhci_hcd
  gsmi: Log Shutdown Reason 0x03
  CR2: ffff906ae30f0300
  ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---
  RIP: 0010:memset+0xf/0x20
  Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception
  Kernel Offset: 0x39e00000 from 0xffffffff81000000 (relocation range: 0xffffffff80000000-0xffffffffbfffffff)
  gsmi: Log Shutdown Reason 0x02

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-80853?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-80853?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2026-80853 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-80853 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-80853 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-80853 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 4 Sep 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-80853 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-80853/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-80853/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-80853
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-80853
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-80853

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-80853/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.