Unity Linux 20.1050a Security Update: kernel (UTSA-2026-098808)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 340254

Synopsis

The Unity Linux host is missing one or more security updates.

Description

The Unity Linux 20 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the UTSA-2026-098808 advisory.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net: ethernet: cortina: Use TOE/TSO on all TCP

It is desireable to push the hardware accelerator to also process non-segmented TCP frames: we pass the skb->len to the TOE/TSO offloader and it will handle them.

Without this quirk the driver becomes unstable and lock up and and crash.

I do not know exactly why, but it is probably due to the TOE (TCP offload engine) feature that is coupled with the segmentation feature - it is not possible to turn one part off and not the other, either both TOE and TSO are active, or neither of them.

Not having the TOE part active seems detrimental, as if that hardware feature is not really supposed to be turned off.

The datasheet says:

Based on packet parsing and TCP connection/NAT table lookup results, the NetEngine puts the packets belonging to the same TCP connection to the same queue for the software to process. The NetEngine puts incoming packets to the buffer or series of buffers for a jumbo packet. With this hardware acceleration, IP/TCP header parsing, checksum validation and connection lookup are offloaded from the software processing.

After numerous tests with the hardware locking up after something between minutes and hours depending on load using iperf3 I have concluded this is necessary to stabilize the hardware.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Unity Linux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

Solution

Update the affected kernel package.

See Also

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-38331

http://www.nessus.org/u?0cfc5b3a

http://www.nessus.org/u?1c86c2df

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 340254

File Name: unity_linux_UTSA-2026-098808.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: Local

Published: 8/26/2026

Updated: 8/26/2026

Supported Sensors: Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 3

Percentile: 23.67

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.6

Temporal Score: 3.4

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2025-38331

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.5

Temporal Score: 4.8

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/cpu, Host/UOS-Server/release, Host/UOS-Server/rpm-list

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 8/10/2026

Vulnerability Publication Date: 7/10/2025

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2025-38331