CVE-2017-12188

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2017-10-11 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-121

Description

arch/x86/kvm/mmu.c in the Linux kernel through 4.13.5, when nested virtualisation is used, does not properly traverse guest pagetable entries to resolve a guest virtual address, which allows L1 guest OS users to execute arbitrary code on the host OS or cause a denial of service (incorrect index during page walking, and host OS crash), aka an "MMU potential stack buffer overrun."

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 4.6 before 4.9.57; from 4.10 before 4.13.8 — fixed in 4.13.8, 4.9.57

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 4.13.8, 4.9.57. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/101267
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:0395
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:0412
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1500380
https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9996579/
https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9996587/
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/101267
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:0395
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:0412
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1500380
https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9996579/
https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9996587/

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