CVE-2026-98878

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: irqchip/gic-v5: Immediately exec priority drop following activate With GICv5 an interrupt of equal or lower priority cannot be signalled until there has been a priority drop. This is done via the GIC CDEOI system instruction. Once this has been executed, the hardware is able to signal the next interrupt if there is one. As all interrupts are programmed to have the same priority, no new interrupts can be signalled until the priority drop has happened. This can cause issues when, for example, an interrupt remains active while a long running process takes place, such as when injecting a physical interrupt into a guest VM in software. The GICv5 driver has so far done the priority drop as part of irq_eoi(), i.e., at the same time as deactivating the interrupt. This means that any long running process (or VM) could block incoming interrupts, effectively causing a denial of service for all other interrupts. Rather than doing the EOI as part of irq_eoi() (which the name would suggest would be a good place for it), move it to happen immediately after acknowledging an interrupt in the main GICv5 interrupt handler. The deactivation of interrupts (GIC CDDI) remains implemented as part of irq_eoi(), which means that the same interrupt cannot be signalled a second time until deactivated by software.

Package Linux Kernel
Published 2026-10-23
Last modified 2026-10-23
Patch available
Yes

Affected versions

Fixed in 6.18.53, 7.2 and their respective stable series.

Fixed in
✓ 6.18.53 6.18.x ✓ 7.2

Frequently asked questions

  • What is CVE-2026-98878?

    CVE-2026-98878 is a unscored severity Linux kernel vulnerability . CVE-2026-98878 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

  • Is there a patch available for CVE-2026-98878?

    Yes. CVE-2026-98878 has been patched. Fixed versions include 6.18.53 and 7.2.

  • Is CVE-2026-98878 actively exploited?

    No. CVE-2026-98878 has not been confirmed as actively exploited. It is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.