CVE-2026-90078 net/sched: act_skbmod: fix length calculations and avoid invalid header warnings
A flaw in the Linux kernel's traffic control module causes invalid header warnings and drops valid short packets, leading to potential denial of service.
- 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
What is CVE-2026-90078?
CVE-2026-90078 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 17 Sep 2026. 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/sched: act_skbmod: fix length calculations and avoid invalid header warnings
syzbot reported a warning in skb_network_header_len() triggered by tcf_skbmod_act():
!skb_transport_header_was_set(skb) WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 14949 at include/linux/skbuff.h:3243 skb_network_header_len include/linux/skbuff.h:3243 [inline] WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 14949 at net/sched/act_skbmod.c:55 tcf_skbmod_act+0xfe8/0x1810 net/sched/act_skbmod.c:55
There are a few issues in tcf_skbmod_act():
1. Calling skb_network_header_len() assumes skb->transport_header is set, which is not guaranteed when tcf_skbmod_act() runs at TC ingress. 2. Unconditionally calling skb_mac_header_len() at the beginning of tcf_skbmod_act() triggers a warning on L3 devices (e.g. TUN) where the MAC header is unset, evaluating to an underflowed garbage length. 3. On TC ingress, skb->data points to the network header. Adding the MAC header length to the IP header length causes skb_ensure_writable() to request more bytes than the actual IP packet length, dropping valid short packets (e.g. 28-byte UDP/IPv4 packets).
Fix these by: - Using skb_network_offset(skb) + sizeof(struct iphdr/ipv6hdr) for SKBMOD_F_ECN so that the required length is correctly calculated on both ingress (offset == 0) and egress (offset == mac_len). - Setting max_edit_len to ETH_HLEN for Ethernet header modifications after validating ARPHRD_ETHER.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-90078?
How do I fix CVE-2026-90078?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2026-90078 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-90078 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-102536, BELL-CVE-2026-90078, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-90078, GHSA-4hxp-vhhr-h77f, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-90078.