🛡️ CVE-2026-46290 — kernel

🟡 CVSS 5.5 — Medium ✅ No Known Exploit NVD
5.5
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

x86/efi: Fix graceful fault handling after FPU softirq changes

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

x86/efi: Fix graceful fault handling after FPU softirq changes

Since commit d02198550423 ("x86/fpu: Improve crypto performance by

making kernel-mode FPU reliably usable in softirqs"), kernel_fpu_begin()

calls fpregs_lock() which uses local_bh_disable() instead of the

previous preempt_disable(). This sets SOFTIRQ_OFFSET in preempt_count

during the entire EFI runtime service call, causing in_interrupt() to

return true in normal task context.

The graceful page fault handler efi_crash_gracefully_on_page_fault()

uses in_interrupt() to bail out for faults in real interrupt context.

With SOFTIRQ_OFFSET now set, the handler always bails out, leaving EFI

firmware page faults unhandled. This escalates to die() which also sees

in_interrupt() as true and calls panic("Fatal exception in interrupt"),

resulting in a hard system freeze. On systems with buggy firmware that

triggers page faults during EFI runtime calls (e.g., accessing unmapped

memory in GetTime()), this causes an unrecoverable hang instead of the

expected graceful EFI_ABORTED recovery.

Fix by replacing in_interrupt() with !in_task(). This preserves the

original intent of bailing for interrupts or NMI faults, while no longer

falsely triggering from the FPU code path's local_bh_disable().

[ardb: Sashiko spotted that using 'in_hardirq() || in_nmi()' leaves a

window where a softirq may be taken before fpregs_lock() is

called, but after efi_rts_work.efi_rts_id has been assigned,

and any page faults occurring in that window will then be

misidentified as having been caused by the firmware. Instead,

use !in_task(), which incorporates in_serving_softirq(). ]

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached with local access to the system, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs low-level privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality none, integrity none, availability high.

Affected software

CVE-2026-46290 is recorded against 3 packages.

  • kernel (from 6.19.0 up to 7.0.7)
  • linux-kernel
  • unknown

Timeline and source

Published on 8 June 2026 and last revised on 25 July 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. A vendor advisory or fix has been published. Record sourced from NVD.

References

git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
github.com (Advisory)
nvd.nist.gov (Advisory)
git.kernel.org (Package)

CVE-2026-46290 on other distributions

Each distribution ships its own build and its own fixed version. Pick the one you run:

Details

Severity Medium
CVSS Score 5.5
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE N/A
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2026-06-08
Updated 2026-08-12
Modified 2026-07-25

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
kernel 6.19.0 7.0.7
linux-kernel
unknown

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