CVE-2026-98375 xen/netfront: drop RX packets with a short Ethernet header
A malicious Xen backend can cause a kernel crash or memory read by sending network packets with short Ethernet headers.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-98375?
CVE-2026-98375 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 9 Oct 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:
xen/netfront: drop RX packets with a short Ethernet header
handle_incoming_queue() pulls pull_to bytes into the head before calling eth_type_trans(). pull_to is the length of the first RX slot, capped at RX_COPY_THRESHOLD, and that length comes from the backend. Nothing checks it against ETH_HLEN.
If the first slot is shorter than ETH_HLEN and more slots follow, the head ends up shorter than an Ethernet header while skb->len is longer, and eth_type_trans() BUG()s in __skb_pull(). If the whole packet is shorter than ETH_HLEN, eth_type_trans() reads the header past the end of the data instead.
Pull at least ETH_HLEN, and drop the packet if that fails, which also drops packets too short to hold an Ethernet header. This also checks the return value of the pull, which was ignored.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-98375?
How do I fix CVE-2026-98375?
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-2026-98375 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98375 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-110453, BELL-CVE-2026-98375, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98375, GHSA-6q97-4p5q-xv9v, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98375.