Bug 2559659 (CVE-2026-98954) - CVE-2026-98954 kernel: net: always dissect GSO packets in __virtio_net_hdr_to_skb()
Summary: CVE-2026-98954 kernel: net: always dissect GSO packets in __virtio_net_hdr_to...
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-98954
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security DevOps Team
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-10-23 12:54 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-10-27 13:59 UTC (History)
17 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-23 12:54:50 UTC
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.


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