The last two bits of the CS register contain the Current Privilege Level (CPL), which can contain either the value 0 or 1 or 2 or 3.
If the value of CPL is 0, does that mean the CPU is in kernel mode (and hence can do everything)? or are there other things that must apply in order for the CPU to be in kernel mode?
解决方案
Yes, CPL=0 means kernel/supervisor mode. However, in real mode CPL is also 0 but not reflected in CS. Likewise, in virtual 8086 mode, CPL is 3 and not reflected in CS.
Somewhat related, you may also check for protected mode by examining bit 0 of CR0 using the SMSW instruction (it returns 16 lower bits of CR0). The bit will be set to 1 in virtual 8086 mode because the CPU can get there only through protected mode (you may consider the former as a submode of the latter).