Linux KernelOperating system · Linux
CVE-2021-47450
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedIn the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: arm64: Fix host stage-2 PGD refcount The KVM page-table library refcounts the pages of concatenated stage-2 PGDs individually. However, when running KVM in protected mode, the host's stage-2 PGD is currently managed by EL2 as a single high-order compound page, which can cause the refcount of the tail pages to reach 0 when they shouldn't, hence corrupting the page-table. Fix this by introducing a new hyp_split_page() helper in the EL2 page allocator (matching the kernel's split_page() function), and make use of it from host_s2_zalloc_pages_exact().
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysisA detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data
Linux KernelOperating system
>= 5.13, < 5.14.15= 5.15CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
dbcve · scoped5.14.15
Linux Kernel 5.14.15 or later (for 5.14.x branch); Linux Kernel 5.15.2 or later stable (for 5.15.x branch); or Linux Kernel 5.16+
- 1. Identify the current running kernel version using 'uname -r' or 'cat /proc/version'
- 2. For systems running kernel >= 5.13 and < 5.14.15, upgrade to kernel version 5.14.15 or later
- 3. For systems running kernel 5.15.x, upgrade to a 5.15.y stable version that includes the backported fix (e.g., 5.15.2 or later stable releases that contain commit 1d58a17ef54599506d44c45ac95be27273a4d2b1)
- 4. Alternatively, upgrade to kernel 5.16 or newer which contains the fix
- 5. After kernel upgrade, reboot the system to load the fixed kernel
- 6. Verify the fix is applied by checking the kernel version and confirming KVM arm64 functionality works correctly
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-47450 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-47450 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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