CVE-2026-98557 gve: DQO: fix header length used by gve_can_send_tso() for UDP GSO
A flaw in the Linux kernel gve driver causes incorrect buffer calculations for UDP GSO packets, potentially leading to denial of service.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-98557?
CVE-2026-98557 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 18 Oct 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
gve: DQO: fix header length used by gve_can_send_tso() for UDP GSO
gve_can_send_tso() computes how many buffers each segment of a GSO packet would span, and for this it needs the length of the headers that the device replicates in front of every segment.
It unconditionally uses skb_tcp_all_headers(), which reads the doff field of the TCP header. SKB_GSO_UDP_L4 packets have no TCP header: tcp_hdrlen() then reads one byte of the UDP payload, and header_len can be anything in [0, 60] instead of the transport offset plus the eight bytes of the UDP header that gve_prep_tso() programs into the TSO context descriptor.
A wrong header length shifts all the segment boundaries computed in the loop, so the number of buffers per segment can be over or under estimated. In the first case, GSO is needlessly disabled for this packet by gve_features_check_dqo() and the stack has to segment it. In the second case, the driver hands the device a packet whose segments span more than GVE_TX_MAX_DATA_DESCS buffers.
Use the UDP header length for SKB_GSO_UDP_L4 packets, matching what gve_prep_tso() does.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-98557?
How do I fix CVE-2026-98557?
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-2026-98557 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98557 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98557, GHSA-jvwf-rjpr-3g5x, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98557.