KVM in the Linux kernel on Power8 processors has a conflicting use of HSTATEHOSTR1 to store r1 state in kvmppchventry plus in kvmppc{save,restore}tm, leading to a stack corruption. Because of this, an attacker with the ability run code in kernel space of a guest VM can cause the host kernel to panic. There were two commits that, according to the reporter, introduced the vulnerability: f024ee098476 ("KVM: PPC: Book3S HV: Pull out TM state save/restore into separate procedures") 87a11bb6a7f7 ("KVM: PPC: Book3S HV: Work around XER[SO] bug in fake suspend mode") The former landed in 4.8, the latter in 4.17. This was fixed without realizing the impact in 4.18 with the following three commits, though it's believed the first is the only strictly necessary commit: 6f597c6b63b6 ("KVM: PPC: Book3S PR: Add guest MSR parameter for kvmppcsavetm()/kvmppcrestoretm()") 7b0e827c6970 ("KVM: PPC: Book3S HV: Factor fake-suspend handling out of kvmppcsave/restoretm") 009c872a8bc4 ("KVM: PPC: Book3S PR: Move kvmppcsavetm/kvmppcrestoretm to separate file")