CVE-2026-43331

Medium

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/kexec: Disable KCOV instrumentation after load_segments() The load_segments() function changes segment registers, invalidating GS base (which KCOV relies on for per-cpu data). When CONFIG_KCOV is enabled, any subsequent instrumented C code call (e.g. native_gdt_invalidate()) begins crashing the kernel in an endless loop. To reproduce the problem, it's sufficient to do kexec on a KCOV-instrumented kernel: $ kexec -l /boot/otherKernel $ kexec -e The real-world context for this problem is enabling crash dump collection in syzkaller. For this, the tool loads a panic kernel before fuzzing and then calls makedumpfile after the panic. This workflow requires both CONFIG_KEXEC and CONFIG_KCOV to be enabled simultaneously. Adding safeguards directly to the KCOV fast-path (__sanitizer_cov_trace_pc()) is also undesirable as it would introduce an extra performance overhead. Disabling instrumentation for the individual functions would be too fragile, so disable KCOV instrumentation for the entire machine_kexec_64.c and physaddr.c. If coverage-guided fuzzing ever needs these components in the future, other approaches should be considered. The problem is not relevant for 32 bit kernels as CONFIG_KCOV is not supported there. [ bp: Space out comment for better readability. ]

SeverityMedium
CVSS5.5
Exploit probability—
ProductLinux Kernel
PublishedMay 8, 2026
First seenMay 8, 2026

How to fix

Update
  • linux linux_kernel6.18.22, 6.19.12 or later

Affected products

ProductAffected versionsFixed in
linux linux_kernel6.6 ≤ v < 6.18.22, 6.19 ≤ v < 6.19.12, 7.06.18.22, 6.19.12

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