CVE-2026-63939

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

KVM: SEV: Compute the correct max length of the in-GHCB scratch area

When setting the length of the GHCB scratch area, and the area is in the GHCB shared buffer, set the effective length of the scratch area to the max possible size given the start of the guest-provided pointer, and the end of the shared buffer.

The code was fine when first introduced, as KVM doesnt consult the length of the buffer when emulating MMIO, because the passed in @len always specifies the max size required. But for PSC requests, the incoming @len is just the minimum length (to process the header), and KVM needs to know the full size of the scratch area to avoid buffer overflows (spoiler alert).

Opportunistically rename @len => @min_len to better reflect its role.

Weakness

A heap overflow condition is a buffer overflow, where the buffer that can be overwritten is allocated in the heap portion of memory, generally meaning that the buffer was allocated using a routine such as malloc().

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Use automatic buffer overflow detection mechanisms that are offered by certain compilers or compiler extensions. Examples include: the Microsoft Visual Studio /GS flag, Fedora/Red Hat FORTIFY_SOURCE GCC flag, StackGuard, and ProPolice, which provide various mechanisms including canary-based detection and range/index checking.
• D3-SFCV (Stack Frame Canary Validation) from D3FEND [REF-1334] discusses canary-based detection in detail.
• Run or compile the software using features or extensions that randomly arrange the positions of a program’s executable and libraries in memory. Because this makes the addresses unpredictable, it can prevent an attacker from reliably jumping to exploitable code.
• Examples include Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) [REF-58] [REF-60] and Position-Independent Executables (PIE) [REF-64]. Imported modules may be similarly realigned if their default memory addresses conflict with other modules, in a process known as “rebasing” (for Windows) and “prelinking” (for Linux) [REF-1332] using randomly generated addresses. ASLR for libraries cannot be used in conjunction with prelink since it would require relocating the libraries at run-time, defeating the whole purpose of prelinking.
• For more information on these techniques see D3-SAOR (Segment Address Offset Randomization) from D3FEND [REF-1335].

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/92.html

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5867d7e202e09f037cefe77f7af4413c7c0fa088
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6644565527c4c5f507088b1c9ddf72de47790b68
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6ca9400d36005ffdca25f80186bea781c7e1dc4c
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9f0a9e780f02c02d025a190f1885e1d1d73b87bd