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CVE-2025-40300 Not scored

x86/vmscape: Add conditional IBPB mitigation

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/vmscape: Add conditional IBPB mitigation VMSCAPE is a vulnerability that exploits insufficient branch predictor isolation between a guest and a userspace hypervisor (like QEMU). Existing mitigations already protect kernel/KVM from a malicious guest. Userspace can additionally be protected by flushing the branch predictors after a VMexit. Since it is the userspace that consumes the poisoned branch predictors, conditionally issue an IBPB after a VMexit and before returning to userspace. Workloads that frequently switch between hypervisor and userspace will incur the most overhead from the new IBPB. This new IBPB is not integrated with the existing IBPB sites. For instance, a task can use the existing speculation control prctl() to get an IBPB at context switch time. With this implementation, the IBPB is doubled up: one at context switch and another before running userspace. The intent is to integrate and optimize these cases post-embargo. [ dhansen: elaborate on suboptimal IBPB solution ]

Exploit probability 0.3%
Published September 11, 2025
Required by Not available
Last source change July 16, 2026

02 / AFFECTED SOFTWARE

Affected packages

Linux Kernel
Unknown Unknown

626 explicit affected versions

03 / CONNECTIONS

Connected vulnerabilities

related ALSA-2025:19930
related ALSA-2025:19931
related ALSA-2025:19932
related OPENSUSE-SU-2025:15553-1
related OPENSUSE-SU-2025:20081-1
related OPENSUSE-SU-2026:10301-1
related SUSE-SU-2025:03600-1
related SUSE-SU-2025:03601-1
related SUSE-SU-2025:03614-1
related SUSE-SU-2025:03633-1
related SUSE-SU-2025:03634-1
related SUSE-SU-2025:20851-1
related SUSE-SU-2025:20861-1
related SUSE-SU-2025:20870-1
related SUSE-SU-2025:20898-1
related SUSE-SU-2025:21074-1
related SUSE-SU-2025:21139-1
related SUSE-SU-2025:21179-1
related SUSE-SU-2025:3725-1
related SUSE-SU-2025:3751-1
related SUSE-SU-2026:0411-1
related SUSE-SU-2026:0474-1
related SUSE-SU-2026:0496-1
related SUSE-SU-2026:0617-1

04 / EVIDENCE

Source records

Open Source Vulnerabilities CVE-2025-40300

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/vmscape: Add conditional IBPB mitigation VMSCAPE is a vulnerability that exploits insufficient branch predictor isolation between a guest and a userspace hypervisor (like QEMU). Existing mitigations already protect kernel/KVM from a malicious guest. Userspace can additionally be protected by flushing the branch predictors after a VMexit. Since it is the userspace that consumes the poisoned branch predictors, conditionally issue an IBPB after a VMexit and before returning to userspace. Workloads that frequently switch between hypervisor and userspace will incur the most overhead from the new IBPB. This new IBPB is not integrated with the existing IBPB sites. For instance, a task can use the existing speculation control prctl() to get an IBPB at context switch time. With this implementation, the IBPB is doubled up: one at context switch and another before running userspace. The intent is to integrate and optimize these cases post-embargo. [ dhansen: elaborate on suboptimal IBPB solution ]

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05 / REFERENCES

Further evidence