Bug 2559623 (CVE-2026-98950)

Summary: CVE-2026-98950 kernel: flow_dissector: avoid u16 truncation of hlen in bpf_flow_dissect()
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: low Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: unspecifiedCC: akhatavk, aos-team-art-private, asdas, dpaolell, jdelft, jupierce, lgarciaa, mbiarnes, ppalepu, ppostler, prdhamdh, rhel-process-autobot, sghai, sidsharm, suppawar, vlaad, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the Linux kernel. A remote attacker could trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) or improper packet routing due to an integer truncation vulnerability within the Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) flow dissector. When handling packets with header lengths exceeding 16-bit limits (65,535 bytes), the upper bound value is truncated during offset clamping, forcing network and transport header offsets to zero. This miscalculation can disrupt packet classification and cause network traffic to be misrouted or dropped.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-23 12:43:57 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

flow_dissector: avoid u16 truncation of hlen in bpf_flow_dissect()

bpf_flow_dissect() sanitizes the offsets returned by the BPF program
with clamp_t(u16, ..., hlen).

If hlen is bigger than 65535, the upper bound is truncated before
the comparison. For instance, with hlen == 65536, both nhoff and
thoff are forced to zero, even if the program returned sane values.

This is the same class of bug as the one fixed in commit 99bda1ecbd56
("flow_dissector: avoid u16 truncation of skb->len when computing
thoff"). That fix does not cover the BPF path, because
__skb_flow_dissect() returns early when a BPF flow dissector
handles the packet.

struct bpf_flow_keys stores nhoff and thoff as u16, so cap hlen
to U16_MAX before clamping.

Found by sashiko while reviewing the commit above.