CVE-2026-98954
Received
Received - Intake
Heap-based Buffer Overflow in Linux Kernel Network Stack
Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-98954, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.
Publication date: 2026-10-23
Last updated on: 2026-10-23
Assigner: kernel.org
Description
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
net: always dissect GSO packets in __virtio_net_hdr_to_skb()
Commit 9e8db5913264 ("net: avoid false positives in untrusted gso
validation") added a '&& skb->network_header' check before flow-dissecting
GSO packets without VIRTIO_NET_HDR_F_NEEDS_CSUM in
__virtio_net_hdr_to_skb(), because some callers (such as tun_get_user(),
tun_xdp_one(), virtnet_receive_done(), and raw_verify_header()) called
virtio_net_hdr_*_to_skb() before initializing skb->network_header and
skb->dev.
Because __alloc_skb() and __build_skb_around() zero-initialize
skb->network_header to 0 (unlike mac_header and transport_header which
are initialized to ~0U), those four callers always had
skb->network_header == 0 and bypassed flow dissection in
__virtio_net_hdr_to_skb(). More generally, skb->network_header is an
offset from skb->head (where 0 is also a valid offset whenever
skb_headroom(skb) is 0), not a boolean flag.
Whenever the 'if (gso_type && skb->network_header)' branch was skipped,
the fallback 'else if (gso_type)' only pulled nh_min_len + thlen (40 bytes
for TCPv4) without dissecting the packet, without validating ip_proto or
n_proto, and without setting skb->transport_header.
If the packet has a malformed network header, it is not rejected and a
subsequent skb_probe_transport_header() also fails, leaving
skb->transport_header at ~0U (0xffff). Similarly, if an IPv4 packet
carries IP options (ihl > 5) or an IPv6 packet carries extension headers,
pulling only nh_min_len + thlen can leave the TCP header outside
skb->head. In both cases, tcp_hdrlen(skb) in skb_gso_transport_seglen()
reads out-of-bounds:
BUG: KASAN: slab-out-of-bounds in skb_gso_transport_seglen
Read of size 2 by task poc/133
skb_gso_transport_seglen (net/core/gso.c:155)
skb_gso_validate_mac_len (net/core/gso.c:270)
tbf_enqueue (net/sched/sch_tbf.c:260)
dev_qdisc_enqueue (net/core/dev.c:4227)
__dev_queue_xmit (net/core/dev.c:4884)
In addition, checking virtio_net_hdr_match_proto() only inside
'if (!skb->protocol)' before flow dissection both skipped validation when
skb->protocol was pre-set by the caller and rejected VLAN-tagged frames
whose outer L2 protocol is ETH_P_8021Q or ETH_P_8021AD.
Fix this by:
1. Initializing skb->dev and skb->network_header (plus skb->protocol for
IFF_TUN) before virtio_net_hdr_*_to_skb() in tun_get_user(),
tun_xdp_one(), virtnet_receive_done(), and raw_verify_header(). In
tun_get_user(), drop the redundant skb_reset_mac_header(skb) in the
IFF_TUN case since __virtio_net_hdr_to_skb() unconditionally resets
mac_header.
2. Removing '&& skb->network_header' and the unvalidated
'else if (gso_type)' fallback in __virtio_net_hdr_to_skb() so all GSO
packets without VIRTIO_NET_HDR_F_NEEDS_CSUM are flow-dissected, have
their transport header pulled into linear data, and have
skb->transport_header set.
3. Moving the virtio_net_hdr_match_proto() check to after
skb_flow_dissect_flow_keys_basic(), validating keys.basic.n_proto
against hdr_gso_type.
CVSS Scores
EPSS Scores
| Probability: | |
| Percentile: |
Meta Information
Affected Vendors & Products
| Vendor | Product | Version / Range |
|---|---|---|
| Linux | Linux | d5be7f632bad0f489879eed0ff4b99bd7fe0b74c |
| Linux | Linux | d5be7f632bad0f489879eed0ff4b99bd7fe0b74c |
| Linux | Linux | dac7d4432b13d6b58923c1178b786bcda37c9e9e |
| Linux | Linux | e93384b12443c9bb6830b56b7d299beed432b865 |
| Linux | Linux | f709f7b28d76de327373598a0fda9f916c36b5e6 |
| Linux | Linux | d996573ebd5c528c613e90b7e7daa961d58fa16e |
| Linux | Linux | c375152be9dd9d6fbf6ae5ac8be337d0590f192a |
| Linux | Linux | 0dab7eb86ea06ce8c530785f1999948c6f223c96 |
| Linux | Linux | ea3fb2ce5fa794d02135f5c079e05cd6fc3f545d |
| Linux | Linux | 54ef8243c3c8e90f1ea5792e6752e021a25c8eb3 |
| Linux | Linux | 4.14.104 |
| Linux | Linux | 4.19.26 |
| Linux | Linux | 4.20.13 |
| Linux | Linux | 4.14.226 |
| Linux | Linux | 4.19.181 |
| Linux | Linux | 5.0 |
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-UNKNOWN |