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Attack ChainAIDerived

Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain

  1. Recon
    Gain access to VM migration/snapshot channel
  2. Delivery
    Craft malformed TPM state blob with oversized skip-block length
  3. Exploit
    Submit blob during VM power-on or live migration
  4. Install
    Size counter driven negative in libtpms parser
  5. C2
    UINT32 cast wraps value, bypassing bounds check
  6. Execute
    Out-of-bounds heap read triggers crash
  7. Impact
    swtpm process terminates, VM loses TPM device

Vulnerability Assessment

Weakness
CWE
ASVS 5.0
V15 - Secure Coding and Architecture Bounds checking, read limits
MITRE ATT&CK

1 technique across 1 tactic: Collection

The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up.

Exploitation Conditions

Exploitation requires the ability to supply a malformed TPM state blob to the libtpms state-restore code path. This is triggered specifically during VM power-on from a saved state, snapshot restore, or live migration - not during normal runtime TPM operations. The attacker must be adjacent-network to the hypervisor (AV:A): in practice this means access to the management or migration network, or the ability to inject a crafted snapshot file onto the hypervisor's storage. No authentication to libtpms itself is required (PR:N), but reaching the vulnerable path requires positional access on the infrastructure side. Exploitation is limited to denial of service (swtpm crash, VM TPM loss); no code execution path or data leakage has been confirmed.

Impact

The CVSS vector AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H (score 6.5) is well-calibrated. The adjacent-network attack vector is the critical limiting factor: the attacker must be in a position to supply a crafted TPM state blob, which in practice means access to the VM migration channel, the hypervisor management plane, or the ability to provide a malicious snapshot file - not a trivially reachable network position. The low attack complexity and no-privilege requirement mean the technique itself is straightforward once the attacker has that positional access. Availability impact is high (swtpm process crash brings down virtual TPM for the VM), but confidentiality and integrity are explicitly confirmed unaffected by the vendor. No CISA KEV listing and no public exploit identified at time of analysis; EPSS data was not provided. Real-world priority is moderate for hypervisor operators running KVM with virtual TPM enabled: the impact is VM disruption rather than host compromise or data exfiltration. For environments without live migration or VM snapshotting exposed to untrusted parties, exploitability is further constrained.

Exploit ScenarioDerived

An attacker with access to the live-migration or snapshot-restore channel of a KVM/QEMU hypervisor crafts a TPM state blob with an oversized skip-block length field. When a target VM is powered on or migrated, libtpms parses the blob, the size counter wraps negative, and the swtpm process crashes, causing the VM to lose its TPM device and potentially halt. No public proof-of-concept has been identified, but the fix commit makes the bug straightforward to reconstruct for a researcher with access to a KVM+swtpm environment.

This Month Plan within 30 days. Why: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9).
No patch listed yet 0.4% exploitation probability (EPSS)

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AnalysisAIv1 – Sep 04, 2026

Heap out-of-bounds read in libtpms during TPM 2.0 state restoration allows an adjacent unauthenticated attacker to crash the swtpm process and deny TPM services to dependent virtual machines. The flaw arises in the state-blob parser: an attacker-controlled oversized skip-block length drives the internal INT32 size counter negative; subsequent bounds checks cast that counter to UINT32, wrapping it to a large positive value and bypassing the check, which then drives the parser to read memory outside the heap buffer. Vendor and upstream commit confirm the impact is denial of service only - no data corruption or information disclosure was confirmed. No public exploit or CISA KEV listing has been identified.

RemediationAI

Apply the upstream fix from commit b1462888180d896af03cae0487e8d45009cc445e in the libtpms repository. Red Hat will deliver patched packages for RHEL 8, 9, and 10 via the advisory at https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-85769; operators should apply the relevant errata once published. No specific upstream release version incorporating the patch has been confirmed in the available references - monitor https://github.com/stefanberger/libtpms/releases. As a compensating control where patching is delayed, restricting access to the VM live-migration network and hypervisor management interfaces to trusted administrators reduces the pool of parties who can supply crafted TPM state blobs. Disabling virtual TPM (swtpm) for VMs that do not require it eliminates the attack surface entirely, at the cost of TPM-dependent features such as vTPM-backed disk encryption or Windows 11 attestation in those VMs.

Affects your stack

Find out whether the stacks and servers you run are on an affected version.

Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.

Technical ContextAI · show details

libtpms (github.com/stefanberger/libtpms) is a C library implementing software TPM 2.0 emulation, consumed by swtpm and through it by QEMU/KVM virtual machines needing a virtual TPM device. The state-restore path unmarshals a binary blob representing TPM internal state during VM power-on, snapshot restore, or live migration. CWE-125 (Out-of-bounds Read) describes the root cause: the Unmarshal.c parser uses a signed INT32 size counter that can be driven negative by an oversized block-length field, and then casts that negative value to UINT32 in subsequent size comparisons, wrapping it to a huge positive integer that always passes the bounds check. The upstream fix (commit b1462888180d896af03cae0487e8d45009cc445e) adds an explicit *size < 0 guard before the UINT32 cast in INT8_Unmarshal, UINT16_Unmarshal, UINT32_Unmarshal, UINT64_Unmarshal, and Array_Unmarshal, preventing the signed underflow from bypassing subsequent checks.

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Severity by source

Vendor (redhat) PRIMARY 6.5 MEDIUM
AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
vuln.today AI 6.5 MEDIUM

Adjacent vector because crafted state blob must be supplied during migration/restore; no auth to library required; impact is availability-only (confirmed by vendor).

3.1 AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
4.0 AV:A/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
SUSE 5.5 MEDIUM
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Red Hat 6.5 MEDIUM

Primary rating from Vendor (redhat).

CVSS VectorVendor: redhat

Attack Vector
Adjacent
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

DescriptionCVE.org

A flaw was found in libtpms, a library that provides software TPM 2.0 emulation. When restoring TPM 2.0 state (for example during a virtual machine's power-on or state/migration restore), a malformed state blob can supply an oversized skip-block length that is not validated against the remaining size of the input buffer. This can drive an internal size counter negative, which bypasses a subsequent bounds check due to an unsafe signed-to-unsigned conversion, causing the parser to read memory outside the bounds of the heap buffer holding the state data. Successful exploitation can crash the process hosting libtpms (such as swtpm), resulting in a denial of service of the emulated TPM device and the virtual machine that depends on it. No data corruption or information disclosure was confirmed.

Threat Intelligence Overview

EPSS Score
0.4%
Top 70% exploitable
Prevalence
Medium
used in KVM/QEMU virtual TPM stacks on Linux enterprise deployments
Threat Intel
2
1 sources
Data Quality
6 sources
Confidence: High
EUVD NVD CVE.org EPSS Vulnrichment NEWS MSRC Vendor GitHub

How this decision was reached

The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.

SignalValue
Severity MEDIUM
CISA KEV No
Public POC No
EPSS 0.4%
Patch available No
Active threat No
Deciding rule
MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9)
What every action level means
Emergency Immediate action required. Criteria: CRITICAL + in CISA KEV (actively exploited) without patch, OR CRITICAL + EPSS > 30% without patch, OR CRITICAL + active threat signals without patch.
Act Now Prioritize within 24-48h. Criteria: in KEV with patch available, OR CRITICAL + public POC, OR HIGH + EPSS > 10%, OR CRITICAL + active threat, OR any CRITICAL severity.
This Week Schedule remediation this week. Criteria: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9). Patch within normal change window.
This Month Plan within 30 days. Criteria: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9), lower exploitation probability. Include in regular patch cycle.
Monitor Track and reassess. Criteria: LOW severity (CVSS 0.1-3.9), minimal exploitation risk. No immediate action needed.

SSVC AssessmentENISA

SSVC Decision· derived
Scheduled
Exploitation
None
System Exposure· derived
Controlled
Automatable
No
Human Impact· derived
Medium
Technical Impact
Partial

Priority Score

32
Low Medium High Critical
KEV: 0
EPSS: 0
CVSS: +32
PoC: 0
Weaponized: 0
Threat intel: 0
Gov advisory: 0

Attack Technique

A buffer overflow occurs when a program writes more data to a memory buffer than it was allocated to hold, causing the excess data to spill into adjacent memory regions.

Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.

Affected Products (CPE)CVE.org

cpe:2.3:a:red_hat:red_hat_enterprise_linux_10:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:red_hat:red_hat_enterprise_linux_8:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:red_hat:red_hat_enterprise_linux_9:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
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Vendor StatusVendor

SUSE

Severity: Moderate
Product Status
SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.3 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.4 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.5 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Server Applications 15 SP7 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP7 Affected

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