CVE-2010-5313: Race condition in arch/x86/kvm/x86.c in the Linux kernel before 2.6.38 allows L2 guest OS users to cause a...

Security readout for executives and security teams

This is an old Linux KVM virtualization flaw. A user inside a second-level nested guest could crash the first-level guest host by triggering an emulation failure race. The known impact is denial of service, not data theft or code execution, and the supplied sources do not show active exploitation. Exposure is most likely on legacy Linux systems running KVM with nested virtualization and kernels predating 2.6.38, or vendor kernels lacking the backported fix. Ordinary non-virtualized Linux hosts are not the primary concern based on the supplied description. Treat this as a targeted availability risk for legacy nested virtualization environments. It should be remediated in routine kernel maintenance unless the organization runs untrusted nested guests, where priority should increase. Mitigation focus: Update affected Linux kernels through the relevant vendor security advisory.; Confirm vendor backport status for Red Hat, SUSE, Oracle, or other distributions.; Reduce use of nested virtualization for untrusted workloads until patched..

Prepared

Jun 14, 2026, 06:22 UTC (UTC+00:00)

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.