CVE-2021-47035: iommu/vt-d: Remove WO permissions on second-level paging entries

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2024-02-28 · updated 2026-08-04

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: iommu/vt-d: Remove WO permissions on second-level paging entries When the first level page table is used for IOVA translation, it only supports Read-Only and Read-Write permissions. The Write-Only permission is not supported as the PRESENT bit (implying Read permission) should always set. When using second level, we still give separate permissions that allows WriteOnly which seems inconsistent and awkward. We want to have consistent behavior. After moving to 1st level, we don't want things to work sometimes, and break if we use 2nd level for the same mappings. Hence remove this configuration.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 5.6 before 5.10.37; from 5.11 before 5.11.21; from 5.12 before 5.12.4 — fixed in 5.10.37, 5.11.21, 5.12.4

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.10.37, 5.11.21, 5.12.4. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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