# CVE-2026-98878: irqchip/gic-v5: Immediately exec priority drop following activate


- **Severity:** Not scored
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 23 Oct 2026
- **Updated:** 26 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-110558, BELL-CVE-2026-98878, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98878, GHSA-w79p-wpg5-4m55, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98878

## What is CVE-2026-98878?

CVE-2026-98878 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 23 Oct 2026. 

### Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

irqchip/gic-v5: Immediately exec priority drop following activate

With GICv5 an interrupt of equal or lower priority cannot be signalled
until there has been a priority drop. This is done via the GIC CDEOI
system instruction. Once this has been executed, the hardware is able
to signal the next interrupt if there is one.

As all interrupts are programmed to have the same priority, no new
interrupts can be signalled until the priority drop has happened. This
can cause issues when, for example, an interrupt remains active while
a long running process takes place, such as when injecting a physical
interrupt into a guest VM in software.

The GICv5 driver has so far done the priority drop as part of
irq_eoi(), i.e., at the same time as deactivating the interrupt. This
means that any long running process (or VM) could block incoming
interrupts, effectively causing a denial of service for all other
interrupts.

Rather than doing the EOI as part of irq_eoi() (which the name would
suggest would be a good place for it), move it to happen immediately
after acknowledging an interrupt in the main GICv5 interrupt
handler. The deactivation of interrupts (GIC CDDI) remains implemented
as part of irq_eoi(), which means that the same interrupt cannot be
signalled a second time until deactivated by software.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-98878?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-98878?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2026-98878 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98878 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-98878 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-98878 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 23 Oct 2026. 
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98878 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-2026-98878/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-98878/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-98878
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-98878
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-98878

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-98878/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.