CVE-2026-99018

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

riscv: entry: gate shadow call stack reload on sstatus.SPP, not tp

Under CONFIG_SHADOW_CALL_STACK, handle_exception() reloads the kernel shadow call stack pointer (gp) only when the trap came from userspace. It made that decision with scs_load_current_if_task_changed, which compares the trap-time tp (read back from sscratch into s5) against the current tp:

beq	prev, tp, _skip_scs
scs_load_current

_skip_scs:

tp is a user-writable register. A user task that sets tp to the linear-map address of its own task_struct (&current) before trapping makes the comparison succeed (can achieve by brute force with KASLR enable under our test), so the kernel skips scs_load_current and keeps running with the gp that userspace left in place. Under CONFIG_SHADOW_CALL_STACK gp is the shadow call stack pointer and load_global_pointer is a no-op, so the compiler-emitted sd ra, -8(gp) / ld ra, -8(gp) in every non-leaf function then write to, and return through, an attacker-controlled address – an unprivileged kernel arbitrary-write and control-flow-hijack primitive. The poisoned gp is saved to task_struct.scs_sp on return, so the reload is skipped on every subsequent entry as well.

Decide came from userspace from the hardware sstatus.SPP bit (already in s1 at this point) instead of from tp, mirroring the check that ret_from_exception already uses a few instructions later. SPP is written by hardware on trap entry and cannot be forged from U-mode. Legitimate behaviour is unchanged: user entries (SPP=0) reload the task shadow call stack, nested kernel entries (SPP=1) skip it.

Affected Software

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/37b4401ee6fa06046446d55e97e8d11784080843
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4d0697f192975dab5985e921989be1d85cf580e9
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6639735367a7d491977e9e5e7afc50b489d81d83
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7d1367a53137e379498eb8791295e58854378636