CVE-2026-90054

About vulnerability

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

tcp: fix corruption of urgent data on multi-segment retransmit

On the normal xmit path, while in urgent mode we refuse to build a multi-segment TSO packet, so every segment gets its own urg_ptr:

/* tcp_write_xmit() */ limit = mss_now; if (tso_segs > 1 && !tcp_urg_mode(tp)) limit = tcp_mss_split_point(…);

The retransmit path has no such guard. __tcp_retransmit_skb() builds a segs > 1 skb and hands it to the GSO layer, which only advances th->seq per segment and copies urg_ptr verbatim:

/* __tcp_retransmit_skb() / len = cur_mss * segs; / segs > 1, no urg_mode check / … / tcp_gso_segment(): bumps seq only, urg_ptr is copied */

urg_ptr is an offset from the segment’s own seq, so a copied value points at a different place on each segment. The receiver rebuilds the absolute urgent seq as seg.seq + urg_ptr, so it walks a moving urgent point instead of the one OOB byte:

seg1 seq 1 urg_ptr 5001 -> urgent @ 5001 (ok) seg2 seq 1001 urg_ptr 5001 -> urgent @ 6001 (wrong, +MSS) seg3 seq 2001 urg_ptr 5001 -> urgent @ 7001 (wrong, +2*MSS)

The real OOB byte is never pointed at, so the receiver stops splicing it out and delivers it as normal in-band data, corrupting the stream.

Guard the retransmit length like the xmit path: keep segs = 1 while in urgent mode.

Affected product:

AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU , Amazon Linux 2 ELS , CentOS 8.4 ELS , CentOS 8.5 ELS , CentOS Stream 8 ELS , Debian 10 ELS , Debian 11 ELS , Oracle Linux 7 ELS , TuxCare 9.6 ESU , TuxCare 9.8 ESU , Ubuntu 16.04 ELS , Ubuntu 18.04 ELS , Ubuntu 20.04 ELS

Affected packages:

linux @ 5.4.0 (+12 more)

Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.