SOC status:Duty analyst on shift

UK Cyber Defence
VulnerabilityModified

CVE-2022-2196

A regression exists in the Linux Kernel within KVM: nVMX that allowed for speculative execution attacks.

HIGH 8.8EPSS 0.35%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.35%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

Description

A regression exists in the Linux Kernel within KVM: nVMX that allowed for speculative execution attacks. L2 can carry out Spectre v2 attacks on L1 due to L1 thinking it doesn't need retpolines or IBPB after running L2 due to KVM (L0) advertising eIBRS support to L1. An attacker at L2 with code execution can execute code on an indirect branch on the host machine. We recommend upgrading to Kernel 6.2 or applying the relevant stable backports (v5.4.233, v5.10.170, v5.15.96, v6.1.14).

CVSS 3.1
8.8 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS
0.35% probability · 29th percentile
Public exploits
None in Exploit-DB
CISA KEV
Not listed
Weakness
CWE-1188
Affected
linux/linux kernel · debian/debian linux
Source
cve-coordination@google.com
EPSS trend
0%3%5%26 October 2026: 0.35%26 October 202626 October 2026

EPSS 0.4% since 26 October 2026; no change recorded yet. Points are recorded when the score first appears and whenever it moves by a percentage point or more.

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.