net: skb_partial_csum_set() fix against transport header magic value

published 2025-09-18 13 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2025-29866

cvss: 5.5; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.1%; EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 3%
public exploits: 0; none known

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

skb->transport_header uses the special 0xFFFF value to mark if the transport header was set or not.

We must prevent callers to accidentaly set skb->transport_header to 0xFFFF. Note that only fuzzers can possibly do this today.

syzbot reported:

WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 2340 at include/linux/skbuff.h:2847 skb_transport_offset include/linux/skbuff.h:2956 [inline] WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 2340 at include/linux/skbuff.h:2847 virtio_net_hdr_to_skb+0xbcc/0x10c0 include/linux/virtio_net.h:103 Modules linked in: CPU: 0 PID: 2340 Comm: syz-executor.0 Not tainted 6.3.0-syzkaller #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 04/14/2023 RIP: 0010:skb_transport_header include/linux/skbuff.h:2847 [inline] RIP: 0010:skb_transport_offset include/linux/skbuff.h:2956 [inline] RIP: 0010:virtio_net_hdr_to_skb+0xbcc/0x10c0 include/linux/virtio_net.h:103 Code: 41 39 df 0f 82 c3 04 00 00 48 8b 7c 24 10 44 89 e6 e8 08 6e 59 ff 48 85 c0 74 54 e8 ce 36 7e fc e9 37 f8 ff ff e8 c4 36 7e fc <0f> 0b e9 93 f8 ff ff 44 89 f7 44 89 e6 e8 32 38 7e fc 45 39 e6 0f RSP: 0018:ffffc90004497880 EFLAGS: 00010293 RAX: ffffffff84fea55c RBX: 000000000000ffff RCX: ffff888120be2100 RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 000000000000ffff RDI: 000000000000ffff RBP: ffffc90004497990 R08: ffffffff84fe9de5 R09: 0000000000000034 R10: ffffea00048ebd80 R11: 0000000000000034 R12: ffff88811dc2d9c8 R13: dffffc0000000000 R14: ffff88811dc2d9ae R15: 1ffff11023b85b35 FS: 00007f9211a59700(0000) GS:ffff8881f6c00000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00000000200002c0 CR3: 00000001215a5000 CR4: 00000000003506f0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Call Trace: <TASK> packet_snd net/packet/af_packet.c:3076 [inline] packet_sendmsg+0x4590/0x61a0 net/packet/af_packet.c:3115 sock_sendmsg_nosec net/socket.c:724 [inline] sock_sendmsg net/socket.c:747 [inline] __sys_sendto+0x472/0x630 net/socket.c:2144 __do_sys_sendto net/socket.c:2156 [inline] __se_sys_sendto net/socket.c:2152 [inline] __x64_sys_sendto+0xe5/0x100 net/socket.c:2152 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x2f/0x50 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd RIP: 0033:0x7f9210c8c169 Code: 28 00 00 00 75 05 48 83 c4 28 c3 e8 f1 19 00 00 90 48 89 f8 48 89 f7 48 89 d6 48 89 ca 4d 89 c2 4d 89 c8 4c 8b 4c 24 08 0f 05 <48> 3d 01 f0 ff ff 73 01 c3 48 c7 c1 b8 ff ff ff f7 d8 64 89 01 48 RSP: 002b:00007f9211a59168 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 000000000000002c RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00007f9210dabf80 RCX: 00007f9210c8c169 RDX: 000000000000ffed RSI: 00000000200000c0 RDI: 0000000000000003 RBP: 00007f9210ce7ca1 R08: 0000000020000540 R09: 0000000000000014 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 0000000000000000 R13: 00007ffe135d65cf R14: 00007f9211a59300 R15: 0000000000022000

Patch / fix

fixed in 1 distros 1 links 3

Linux Linux 6.1.30, 6.3.4, 6.4

linux Debian 12 6.1.37-1
linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.3.7-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53439

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2023-53439 updated 2026-11-05 cvss 5.5

kernel: net: skb_partial_csum_set() fix against transport header magic value

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none
Automatable: no
Technical impact: partial
Assessed: 9 mo ago (2026-01-14)

Exploit prediction

0.15% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 3% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CISA ADP	3.1	5.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD	3.1	5.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA	3.1	5.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness

CWE-401 Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime

Technology feeds

Linux kernel rss critical rss

References

Sources

CVE List CVE-2023-53439
NVD CVE-2023-53439

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary