CVE-2026-98745 — arm64/fpsimd: signal: Forbid non-streaming SVE payload on SME-only systems

Affected: Linux

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

arm64/fpsimd: signal: Forbid non-streaming SVE payload on SME-only systems

When system_supports_sme() is true but system_supports_sve() is false, restoring a specifically crafted SVE signal context can result in the task erroneously having non-streaming SVE state. Subsequent attempts to manipulate the task's FPSIMD/SVE/SME state can result in a variety of problems, including fatal EL1 UNDEFs.

In such configurations, the kernel always creates an SVE signal context when delivering a signal, and this can only be in one of two states:

(1) SVE_SIG_FLAG_SM is set, and an SVE payload is present containing streaming mode SVE state. The recorded VL is the task's live streaming VL.

(2) SVE_SIG_FLAG_SM is clear, and an SVE payload is not present. The FPSIMD context contains the non-streaming mode FPSIMD state. The recorded VL is 0.

Currently restore_sve_fpsimd_context() correctly rejects cases where SVE_SIG_FLAG_SM is set and an SVE payload is not present, but fails to reject cases where SVE_SIG_FLAG_SM is clear and an SVE payload is present. Consequently, restore_sve_fpsimd_context() can place the task in a state where it has non-streaming SVE state even when this is not supported by HW.

For example, this can cause a later EL1 UNDEF when the kernel attempts to restore the task's ZCR_EL1 value:

| # ./sme-sigcontext-to-sve | Internal error: Oops - Undefined instruction: 0000000002000000 [#1] SMP…

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CVE-2026-98745 — arm64/fpsimd: signal: Forbid non-streaming SVE payload on SME-only systems