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CVE-2026-72288

9.3 · CRITICAL

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: arm64: vgic: Handle race between interrupt affinity change and LPI disabling Hyunwoo Kim reports some really bad races sho…

Published Aug 15, 2026EPSS 0.18%

Overview

CVE-2026-72288 is a critical-severity vulnerability. It was published on August 15, 2026 and has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.3 (CRITICAL).

This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.3, rated CRITICAL. It requires local or adjacent network access to exploit. No authentication or special privileges are required for exploitation.

Technical description

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

KVM: arm64: vgic: Handle race between interrupt affinity change and LPI disabling

Hyunwoo Kim reports some really bad races should the following

situation occur:

- LPI-I is pending in vcpu-B's AP list

- vcpu-A writes to vcpu-B's RD to disable its LPIs

- vcpu-C moves I from B to C

If the last two race nicely enough, vgic_prune_ap_list() can drop

the irq and AP list locks, reacquire them, and in the interval

the irq has been freed. UAF follows.

The fix is two-fold:

- Before dropping the irq and ap_list locks, take a reference on

the irq

- Do not try to handle migration of the pending bit: there is no

expectation that this state is retained, as per the architecture

With that, we're sure that the interrupt is still around, and we

safely remove it from the AP list as it has no target at this

stage (unless another interrupt fires, but that's another story).

Remediation

Check the references section for vendor advisories, patches, and mitigation guidance. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-72288?

CVE-2026-72288 is a critical-severity vulnerability. It was published on August 15, 2026 and has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.3 (CRITICAL).

How severe is CVE-2026-72288?

This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.3, rated CRITICAL. It requires local or adjacent network access to exploit. No authentication or special privileges are required for exploitation.

How do I fix or remediate CVE-2026-72288?

Check the references section for vendor advisories, patches, and mitigation guidance. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.

How can CyberStrike help with CVE-2026-72288?

CyberStrike is an open-source, AI-augmented pentesting engine. Rather than flag a version number, it tests whether an issue like CVE-2026-72288 is actually reachable in your own applications and APIs, then verifies each finding before reporting it. That tells you if the weakness is a real, exploitable risk in your environment or a false positive you can safely deprioritize.

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