Vulnerability in Linux
CVE-2026-23254
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: gro: fix outer network offset The udp GRO complete stage assumes that all the packets inserted the RX have the `encapsulation` flag zeroed. Such assumption is not true, as a few H/W NICs can set such flag when H/W offloading the checksum for an UDP encapsulated traffic, the tun driver can inject GSO packets with UDP encapsulation and the problematic layout can also be created via a veth based setup. Due to the above, in the problematic scenarios, udp4_gro_complete() uses the wrong network offset (inner instead of outer) to compute the outer UDP header pseudo checksum, leading to csum validation errors later on in packet processing. Address the issue always clearing the encapsulation flag at GRO completion time. Such flag will be set again as needed for encapsulated packets by udp_gro_complete().
EPSS: 0.001 (1.7th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.
CVSS v3 metric
CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.
Affected products
- Linux — versions 6.6.124, 5ef31ea5d053a8f493a772ebad3f3ce82c35d845, 6.18.10
- Linux Linux_kernel — versions 6.9, 6.19
References
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2026-23254?
- CVE-2026-23254 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2026-03-18.
- How severe is CVE-2026-23254?
- Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.