← Back to CVE intelligence
CVE intelligence

CVE-2026-89960

Vulnerability intelligence

Published Sep 16, 2026Sources checked Sep 26, 2026
8.8HIGHCVSS out of 10
What this means

Review the available evidence

CVE-2026-89960 and is rated High severity with a CVSS score of 8.8. It is not in the current CISA KEV record we collected. That does not prove exploitation has not occurred.

CISA KEVNot listedBased on the latest collected catalog
EPSS0.2%Estimated 30-day exploitation probability
Ransomware useNot markedCISA KEV ransomware field
Threat actors0Source-linked actor relationships
Overview

What is CVE-2026-89960?

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: s390/vfio-ap: fix stale pqap_hook pointer on error in vfio_ap_mdev_set_kvm() In vfio_ap_mdev_set_kvm(), kvm->arch.crypto.pqap_hook is set to &matrix_mdev->pqap_hook before the update locks are acquired and the mdev list is checked for a conflicting assignment. If another mdev is already attached to the same KVM instance, the function returns -EPERM without restoring the hook pointer, leaving kvm->arch.crypto.pqap_hook pointing at the failing matrix_mdev instead of the mdev that legitimately owns the KVM. Since matrix_mdev->kvm is never set on this error path, vfio_ap_mdev_unset_kvm() will not clean up the hook when matrix_mdev is later closed. If matrix_mdev is subsequently freed, any PQAP instruction executed by the guest will dereference the stale pointer through pqap_hook_rwsem, resulting in a use-after-free. Since kvm->arch.crypto.pqap_hook is only set in the vfio_ap_mdev_set_kvm() function and is cleared in the vfio_ap_mdev_unset_kvm() function, a check for 'kvm->arch.crypto.pqap_hook != NULL' is all that is needed to determine whether it belongs to another mdev. This will alleviate the need to iterate the matrix_dev->mdev_list list to see if the kvm object is assigned to another mdev.This was introduced in v3 to alleviate the need to take the mdevs_lock while iterating the list; however, this did not prevent a potential race condition. The pqap_hook_rwsem(write) is now performed inside get_update_locks_for_kvm(), which is updated to acquire pqap_hook_rwsem(write) between kvm->lock and mdevs_lock. This ordering is consistent with the PQAP intercept path, which acquires pqap_hook_rwsem in read mode while srcu is held under vcpu->mutex, establishing the dependency: kvm->lock -> vcpu->mutex -> srcu -> pqap_hook_rwsem(read). The pqap_hook_rwsem is now released inside the release_update_locks_for_kvm(), which is updated to release pqap_hook_rwsem(write) between mdevs_lock and kvm->lock. Additionally, kvm_put_kvm() in vfio_ap_mdev_unset_kvm() is moved after release_update_locks_for_kvm(). Previously it was called while kvm->lock was held; if it were ever the last reference, kvm_destroy_vm() would run under kvm->lock, which would deadlock.