Description
A flaw was found in QEMU. The VAPIC setup hypercall in hw/i386/vapic.c does not validate that the writable RAM alias remains within the option ROM window. A privileged guest user on a Q35/KVM machine can position this alias over locked SMRAM, bypassing chipset D_LCK protection and injecting code into System Management Mode memory.
Published: 2026-09-18
Score: 6.7 Medium
EPSS: n/a
KEV: No
Impact: n/a
Action: n/a
AI Analysis

No analysis available yet.

Remediation

Vendor Workaround

The VAPIC TPR optimization can be disabled by preventing the kvmvapic option ROM from loading. When using libvirt, set the following in the guest's domain XML: ``` <features> <apic/> <hyperv> <vapic state='off'/> </hyperv> </features> ``` When using QEMU directly, pass `-global kvmvapic.rom=off` on the command line. This optimization is only used by 32-bit Windows guests for MMIO-based TPR register access. Linux guests, 64-bit Windows guests, and any guest using x2APIC or MSR-based TPR access are unaffected by disabling it.

Tracking

Sign in to view the affected projects.

Advisories

No advisories yet.

History

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description A flaw was found in QEMU. The VAPIC setup hypercall in hw/i386/vapic.c does not validate that the writable RAM alias remains within the option ROM window. A privileged guest user on a Q35/KVM machine can position this alias over locked SMRAM, bypassing chipset D_LCK protection and injecting code into System Management Mode memory.
Title Qemu-kvm: vapic writable rom alias can escape the option-rom window and expose locked smram
First Time appeared Redhat
Redhat enterprise Linux
Redhat enterprise Linux Nvidia
Redhat openshift
Redhat openstack
Weaknesses CWE-787
CPEs cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux_nvidia:
cpe:/a:redhat:openshift:4
cpe:/a:redhat:openstack:13
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:10
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:9
Vendors & Products Redhat
Redhat enterprise Linux
Redhat enterprise Linux Nvidia
Redhat openshift
Redhat openstack
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 6.7, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H'}


Subscriptions

Redhat Enterprise Linux Enterprise Linux Nvidia Openshift Openstack
cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: redhat

Published:

Updated: 2026-09-18T10:58:39.337Z

Reserved: 2026-08-27T09:01:09.972Z

Link: CVE-2026-81627

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-09-18T11:17:18.490

Modified: 2026-09-18T11:17:18.490

Link: CVE-2026-81627

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.

Weaknesses