# CVE-2024-43897: net: drop bad gso csum_start and offset in virtio_net_hdr > A local attacker can trigger a kernel warning and potential crash by injecting malformed TSO packets with invalid checksum offsets in the Linux kernel. - **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`) - **Exploited in the wild:** Not known - **Login needed:** Any signed-in user - **Attackable:** Local or same network only - **Victim action needed:** Not needed - **Fix available:** Yes - **Published:** 26 Aug 2024 - **Updated:** 5 Aug 2026 - **Also known as:** AZL-48670, BELL-CVE-2024-43897, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-43897, GHSA-44m4-gm9r-m853, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-43897 ## What is CVE-2024-43897? CVE-2024-43897 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 26 Aug 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim. ### Official description In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: drop bad gso csum_start and offset in virtio_net_hdr Tighten csum_start and csum_offset checks in virtio_net_hdr_to_skb for GSO packets. The function already checks that a checksum requested with VIRTIO_NET_HDR_F_NEEDS_CSUM is in skb linear. But for GSO packets this might not hold for segs after segmentation. Syzkaller demonstrated to reach this warning in skb_checksum_help offset = skb_checksum_start_offset(skb); ret = -EINVAL; if (WARN_ON_ONCE(offset >= skb_headlen(skb))) By injecting a TSO packet: WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 3539 at net/core/dev.c:3284 skb_checksum_help+0x3d0/0x5b0 ip_do_fragment+0x209/0x1b20 net/ipv4/ip_output.c:774 ip_finish_output_gso net/ipv4/ip_output.c:279 [inline] __ip_finish_output+0x2bd/0x4b0 net/ipv4/ip_output.c:301 iptunnel_xmit+0x50c/0x930 net/ipv4/ip_tunnel_core.c:82 ip_tunnel_xmit+0x2296/0x2c70 net/ipv4/ip_tunnel.c:813 __gre_xmit net/ipv4/ip_gre.c:469 [inline] ipgre_xmit+0x759/0xa60 net/ipv4/ip_gre.c:661 __netdev_start_xmit include/linux/netdevice.h:4850 [inline] netdev_start_xmit include/linux/netdevice.h:4864 [inline] xmit_one net/core/dev.c:3595 [inline] dev_hard_start_xmit+0x261/0x8c0 net/core/dev.c:3611 __dev_queue_xmit+0x1b97/0x3c90 net/core/dev.c:4261 packet_snd net/packet/af_packet.c:3073 [inline] The geometry of the bad input packet at tcp_gso_segment: [ 52.003050][ T8403] skb len=12202 headroom=244 headlen=12093 tailroom=0 [ 52.003050][ T8403] mac=(168,24) mac_len=24 net=(192,52) trans=244 [ 52.003050][ T8403] shinfo(txflags=0 nr_frags=1 gso(size=1552 type=3 segs=0)) [ 52.003050][ T8403] csum(0x60000c7 start=199 offset=1536 ip_summed=3 complete_sw=0 valid=0 level=0) Mitigate with stricter input validation. csum_offset: for GSO packets, deduce the correct value from gso_type. This is already done for USO. Extend it to TSO. Let UFO be: udp[46]_ufo_fragment ignores these fields and always computes the checksum in software. csum_start: finding the real offset requires parsing to the transport header. Do not add a parser, use existing segmentation parsing. Thanks to SKB_GSO_DODGY, that also catches bad packets that are hw offloaded. Again test both TSO and USO. Do not test UFO for the above reason, and do not test UDP tunnel offload. GSO packet are almost always CHECKSUM_PARTIAL. USO packets may be CHECKSUM_NONE since commit 10154dbded6d6 ("udp: Allow GSO transmit from devices with no checksum offload"), but then still these fields are initialized correctly in udp4_hwcsum/udp6_hwcsum_outgoing. So no need to test for ip_summed == CHECKSUM_PARTIAL first. This revises an existing fix mentioned in the Fixes tag, which broke small packets with GSO offload, as detected by kselftests. ## Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-43897? It affects 1 product. Products: Linux kernel. ## How do I fix CVE-2024-43897? Apply the vendor's patch. ## Is CVE-2024-43897 being exploited? There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-43897 in the wild and no public exploit code. ## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel - [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild) - [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild) - [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild) - [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild) - [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild) ## Fix prompt for AI coding agents ```text Check this codebase for CVE-2024-43897 and fix it if it is affected. What it is: CVE-2024-43897 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 26 Aug 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim. Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-43897 in the wild and no public exploit code. Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page. Task: 1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies. 2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it. 3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead. 4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why. 5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing. Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-43897/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-43897/index.md) ``` ## Sources - CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-43897 - NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-43897 - OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2024-43897 --- From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-43897/ Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.