CVE-2026-72046
Description
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's gve driver. When the header-split and Hardware-assisted Generic Receive Offload (HW-GRO) features are active, the driver incorrectly indexes network packet header buffers. This can lead to the driver reading headers belonging to different packets or overwriting header buffers still in use by the device. The primary impact is data corruption, which can cause a significant reduction in network throughput and increased TCP retransmissions, potentially resulting in a denial of service.
Statement
This vulnerability is rated with a Moderate impact for Red Hat products because triggering the issue requires specific virtualized network hardware operating with concurrent hardware receive offload features, confining the consequence to throughput degradation and packet corruption rather than arbitrary code execution. The defect is confined to environments utilizing the Google Virtual Ethernet (gve) driver, and releases earlier than Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 do not include the affected code. Furthermore, exploiting the race condition requires multiple interleaved network flows to cause buffer queue desynchronization on the receive datapath.
Mitigation
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options don't meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 8.6 | N/A | 9.8 |
| Attack Vector | Network | N/A | Network |
| Attack Complexity | Low | N/A | Low |
| Privileges Required | None | N/A | None |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | None |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | Low | N/A | High |
| Integrity Impact | Low | N/A | High |
| Availability Impact | High | N/A | High |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:H
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Other
Technical Impact: Varies by Context
When code does not follow the instructions for resource management, it can lead to unexpected behaviors and potentially exploitable states.
Frequently Asked Questions
Not sure what something means? Check out our Security Glossary.
Want to get errata notifications? Sign up here.
