CVE Catalog

CVE-2026-98556

Low risk· EPSS 9%
Published: Updated: Translated: NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Low risk
0.20%

9th percentile - higher than 9% of all known CVEs

Summary

In the Linux kernel, gve_prep_tso() did not enforce the device-required MSS <= 9728 limit, assuming the 9K MTU and 64KB TSO limit were sufficient. Packets not generated locally (e.g., from a guest behind a tap or a packet socket user) can carry arbitrary gso_size, and the 14-bit MSS field silently turns gso_size 16384 into MSS zero. The fix drops such packets and leaves their GSO bits alone.

Risk Assessment

Can cause transmission errors or malformed packets handed to the device, potentially leading to failure or data loss. Affects systems using the gve driver in DQO mode.

Recommendation

Update the Linux kernel to a version containing the gve driver fix. Until patched, consider restricting packet socket and tap access for untrusted users.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

See all
Original NVD description (English source)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: gve: DQO: reject TSO packets with an out of range MSS gve_prep_tso() notes that the device requires the MSS to be <= 9728, but does not enforce it, assuming the 9K MTU enforced by the hypervisor and the 64KB limit on TSO sizes are enough. This does not hold for packets that were not generated locally. A guest behind a tap, or any packet socket user, can provide an arbitrary gso_size in virtio_net_hdr. Layer 2 forwarding does not check the MTU for GSO packets (is_skb_forwardable()), and gso_features_check() only bounds skb->len and gso_segs, never gso_size. Such a packet reaches gve_tx_fill_tso_ctx_desc(), which puts gso_size into the mss field of the TSO context descriptor. This field is 14 bits wide, so a gso_size of 16384 is silently turned into an MSS of zero. Drop these packets from gve_prep_tso(), and make sure that gve_features_check_dqo() leaves their GSO bits alone: skb_segment() splits at gso_size regardless of the MTU, so falling back to software segmentation would give the device non TSO packets bigger than the 9728 bytes it supports. Note that the device can still be given oversized non TSO packets when the stack segments in software for other reasons, for instance after TSO has been disabled with ethtool. This is a generic issue, because the MTU check is skipped for GSO packets in the forwarding path, and is addressed separately.

Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS