--- title: 16-year-old KVM flaw allows attackers to escape VMs and... description: A critical 16-year-old use-after-free vulnerability (CVE-2026-53359) in the Linux KVM module, dubbed Januscape, allows attackers with root access inside a... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/16-year-old-kvm-flaw-allows-attackers-to-escape-vms-and-take-over-linux-servers-gx1scspvh twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: 16-year-old KVM flaw allows attackers to escape VMs and take over Linux servers | daily.dev og:description: A critical 16-year-old use-after-free vulnerability (CVE-2026-53359) in the Linux KVM module, dubbed Januscape, allows attackers with root access inside a... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/16-year-old-kvm-flaw-allows-attackers-to-escape-vms-and-take-over-linux-servers-gx1scspvh og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/GX1SCsPVh.png og:image:alt: 16-year-old KVM flaw allows attackers to escape VMs and take over Linux servers og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # 16-year-old KVM flaw allows attackers to escape VMs and take over Linux servers **[CSO Online](https://daily.dev/sources/csoonline)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A critical 16-year-old use-after-free vulnerability (CVE-2026-53359) in the Linux KVM module, dubbed Januscape, allows attackers with root access inside a guest VM to execute arbitrary code on the host system. The flaw affects both Intel and AMD x86 CPUs and is the first KVM guest-to-host escape working across both architectures. An attacker renting a single cloud instance could crash the host kernel (DoS) or gain root on the host, compromising all co-tenant VMs. On some distros like RHEL, it also enables local privilege escalation inside the guest. The Linux kernel was patched on June 16, but distribution-level patches may lag. A DoS proof-of-concept has been released; the full VM escape exploit is withheld for now. The same researcher also disclosed a separate ARM64 KVM escape (ITScape, CVE-2026-46316) last month. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [New Linux kernel flaw allows VM escape on Intel, AMD devices](https://daily.dev/posts/new-linux-kernel-flaw-allows-vm-escape-on-intel-amd-devices-pgteqqq1i) · BleepingComputer · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Januscape vulnerability CVE-2026-53359 mitigations available](https://daily.dev/posts/januscape-vulnerability-cve-2026-53359-mitigations-available-e9giiytfe) · Ubuntu · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Google pays $250K for Linux vulnerability allowing guest VM escapes](https://daily.dev/posts/google-pays-250k-for-linux-vulnerability-allowing-guest-vm-escapes-dp9gdnmga) · Ars Technica · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#infrastructure](https://daily.dev/tags/infrastructure) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/16-year-old-kvm-flaw-allows-attackers-to-escape-vms-and-take-over-linux-servers-gx1scspvh) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"16-year-old KVM flaw allows attackers to escape VMs and take over Linux servers","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/16-year-old-kvm-flaw-allows-attackers-to-escape-vms-and-take-over-linux-servers-gx1scspvh","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/16-year-old-kvm-flaw-allows-attackers-to-escape-vms-and-take-over-linux-servers-gx1scspvh"},"datePublished":"2026-07-07T21:55:57.042Z","dateModified":"2026-07-07T21:56:22.566Z","description":"A critical 16-year-old use-after-free vulnerability (CVE-2026-53359) in the Linux KVM module, dubbed Januscape, allows attackers with root access inside a...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/2981a72de690a7ea1559e16e9904d223?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/2981a72de690a7ea1559e16e9904d223?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"CSO Online","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"CSO Online","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/98667e4b5cac46cf9c470819c6cf71cd","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/csoonline"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/16-year-old-kvm-flaw-allows-attackers-to-escape-vms-and-take-over-linux-servers-gx1scspvh","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"linux,infrastructure","timeRequired":"PT3M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"CSO Online","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/csoonline"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"16-year-old KVM flaw allows attackers to escape VMs and take over Linux servers"}]} ```