CVE-2026-46063 | x86/shstk: Prevent deadlock during shstk sigreturn

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/shstk: Prevent deadlock during shstk sigreturn During sigreturn the shadow stack signal frame is popped. The kernel does this by reading the shadow stack using normal read accesses. When it can't assume the memory is shadow stack, it takes extra steps to makes sure it is reading actual shadow stack memory and not other normal readable memory. It does this by holding the mmap read lock while doing the access and checking the flags of the VMA. Unfortunately that is not safe. If the read of the shadow stack sigframe hits a page fault, the fault handler will try to recursively grab another mmap read lock. This normally works ok, but if a writer on another CPU is also waiting, the second read lock could fail and cause a deadlock. Fix this by not holding mmap lock during the read access to userspace. Instead use mmap_lock_speculate_...() to watch for changes between dropping mmap lock and the userspace access. Retry if anything grabbed an mmap write lock in between and could have changed the VMA. These mmap_lock_speculate_...() helpers use mm::mm_lock_seq, which is only available when PER_VMA_LOCK is configured. So make X86_USER_SHADOW_STACK depend on it. On x86, PER_VMA_LOCK is a default configuration for SMP kernels. So drop support for the other configs under the assumption that the !SMP shadow stack user base does not exist. Currently there is a check that skips the lookup work when the SSP can be assumed to be on a shadow stack. While reorganizing the function, remove the optimization to make the tricky code flows more common, such that issues like this cannot escape detection for so long.

Published: 2026-05-27 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2026-46063 is rated Low Risk (22.2/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.09%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2026-46063

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-16 0.17% 0.09% -0.07%
2 2026-06-15 0.02% 0.17% +0.15%
3 2026-05-28 0.02%

Full EPSS history (3 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2026-46063

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
1.8 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2026-46063

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2026-46063

GHSA-5h69-gpmh-v98w · Severity: medium — In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/shstk: Prevent deadlock...

OS Trackers for CVE-2026-46063

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2026-46063 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (linux), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-46063
redhat low https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-46063
suse medium CVE-2026-46063 severity moderate: SUSE including 19 source package names (cluster-md-kmp-default, dlm-kmp-default, …), 125 product×package rows across 24 product lines (SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS, SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS, … (24 product lines)): Known Not Affected 125. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-46063/
ubuntu medium CVE-2026-46063 medium priority: Ubuntu including 158 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1422 status rows across 9 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, questing, resolute, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1024, ignored 169, released 84, not-affected 79, needed 60, pending 6. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2026-46063

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2026-46063

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel >= 6.6, < 6.6.140 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.7, < 6.12.88 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.13, < 6.18.27 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.19, < 7.0.4 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2026-46063

cvelogic Threat Intelligence