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Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-98556

critical Nessus Plugin ID 367169

Synopsis

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed with a vulnerability that the vendor indicates will not be patched.

Description

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

 - gve: DQO: reject TSO packets with an out of range MSS gve_prep_tso() notes that the device requires the MSS to be <= 9728, but does not enforce it, assuming the 9K MTU enforced by the hypervisor and the 64KB limit on TSO sizes are enough. This does not hold for packets that were not generated locally. A guest behind a tap, or any packet socket user, can provide an arbitrary gso_size in virtio_net_hdr. Layer 2 forwarding does not check the MTU for GSO packets (is_skb_forwardable()), and gso_features_check() only bounds skb->len and gso_segs, never gso_size. Such a packet reaches gve_tx_fill_tso_ctx_desc(), which puts gso_size into the mss field of the TSO context descriptor. This field is 14 bits wide, so a gso_size of 16384 is silently turned into an MSS of zero. Drop these packets from gve_prep_tso(), and make sure that gve_features_check_dqo() leaves their GSO bits alone: skb_segment() splits at gso_size regardless of the MTU, so falling back to software segmentation would give the device non TSO packets bigger than the 9728 bytes it supports. Note that the device can still be given oversized non TSO packets when the stack segments in software for other reasons, for instance after TSO has been disabled with ethtool. This is a generic issue, because the MTU check is skipped for GSO packets in the forwarding path, and is addressed separately. (CVE-2026-98556)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

Solution

There is no known solution at this time.

See Also

https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-98556

Plugin Details

Severity: Critical

ID: 367169

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2026_98556.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: Local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 10/18/2026

Updated: 10/18/2026

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.5

Temporal Score: 6.4

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2026-98556

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 9.8

Temporal Score: 9

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

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:12.0, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:13.0, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/cpu, global_settings/vendor_unpatched, Host/OS/identifier

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 10/18/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-98556