CVE-2026-64167: kho: skip KHO for crash kernel

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-07-19 · updated 2026-08-13
Weakness: CWE-476

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: kho: skip KHO for crash kernel kho_fill_kimage() unconditionally populates the kimage with KHO metadata for every kexec image type. When the image is a crash kernel, this can be problematic as the crash kernel can run in a small reserved region and the KHO scratch areas can sit outside it. The crash kernel then faults during kho_memory_init() when it tries phys_to_virt() on the KHO FDT address: Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address xxxxxxxx ... fdt_offset_ptr+... fdt_check_node_offset_+... fdt_first_property_offset+... fdt_get_property_namelen_+... fdt_getprop+... kho_memory_init+... mm_core_init+... start_kernel+... kho_locate_mem_hole() already skips KHO logic for KEXEC_TYPE_CRASH images, but kho_fill_kimage() was missing the same guard. As kho_fill_kimage() is the single point that populates image->kho.fdt and image->kho.scratch, fixing it here is sufficient for both arm64 and x86 as the FDT and boot_params path are bailing out when these fields are unset.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.19 before 7.0.11; 7.1-rc1, 7.1-rc2, 7.1-rc3 — fixed in 7.0.11

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 7.0.11. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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