CVE-2026-72288
Race in arm64 KVM vgic LPI handling causes host kernel use-after-free.
Is CVE-2026-72288 being exploited?
Not confirmed. CVE-2026-72288 does not appear in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, which records only exploitation that has been observed and reported publicly. That is evidence of absence of a report, not evidence the flaw is unattacked. EPSS currently estimates a 0.18% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.
How severe is CVE-2026-72288?
CVE-2026-72288 is rated Critical with a CVSS score of 9.3. Severity describes how bad exploitation would be, not how likely it is: pair it with exploitation evidence before deciding what to patch first.
Is there a patch for CVE-2026-72288?
Yes. A fix has been recorded for CVE-2026-72288. The vendor advisory is the authority on the exact fixed version — apply it from there rather than from a summary.
What does CVE-2026-72288 affect?
CVE-2026-72288 affects Linux kernel (KVM vgic on arm64), ARM64 virtualization hosts, QEMU/KVM-based hypervisors on arm64, Cloud providers offering arm64 VMs. Confirm the exact affected versions against the vendor advisory before deciding you are exposed.
What should I do about CVE-2026-72288?
Apply vendor kernel updates immediately; isolate/restrict untrusted arm64 guests until patched.
Exploitation status reflects CISA's KEV catalog as we last synced it. Check the catalog directly.
Guest-triggered race leads to host kernel use-after-free, enabling host memory corruption, denial of service, or potential host code execution/privilege escalation.
Immediate action required
- affected>= 5dd4b924e390af426e424d5e52c1b4d1566af817 and < d19dca8194ebed371e624331c6be2cb73b562caf
- affected>= 5dd4b924e390af426e424d5e52c1b4d1566af817 and < b1a89d12d35a8256d2b170ced0b1c86851f3def2
- affected>= 5dd4b924e390af426e424d5e52c1b4d1566af817 and < 7258770e5814f15e8308ebda82ac9acf6964ba8e
- affected4.8
As published in the CVE Program record. A version outside these ranges is not a statement that it is unaffected — vendors sometimes understate a range, and distribution-backported builds carry upstream numbers that do not reflect what was patched into them.