CVE-2026-80548: s390/vfio_ccw: Selectively expand io_mutex

Severity: high (CVSS 8.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-08-26 · updated 2026-10-16

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: s390/vfio_ccw: Selectively expand io_mutex The io_mutex was defined to serialize the io_regions, but then has also sort of been associated with the I/O themselves because of the close relationship they share. With the handful of races that are possible, the choices are either to: A) expand the scope of io_mutex to close these remaining windows, or B) reduce the scope of io_mutex to just io_region, and introduce a new lock mechanism for the remaining I/O resources This patch implements A, since B brings with it a lot more interactions that would need to be tracked and kept in a correct hierarchy. It also takes advantage of the workqueue element for cp_free() that now gets called out of fsm_notoper(), which could be invoked out of an interrupt context and thus cannot acquire a mutex itself.

Affected products

Linux kernel: 5.2 — fixed in 7.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 7.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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