diff3 tool from GNU diffutils is vulnerable to a heap‑based buffer overflow due to multiple signed integer overflows in line‑mapping calculations. Incorrect arithmetic in mapping line ranges can result in corrupted values being used for memory allocation and loop bounds. When processing crafted diff output, these overflows may cause the application to allocate insufficient memory and subsequently perform out‑of‑bounds writes during internal processing. An attacker who can control the output of the diff program used by diff3 (e.g. via --diff-program pointing to a malicious script) can trigger out-of-bounds writes, resulting in a crash and potentially remote code execution depending on the environment. This issue has been fixed in commit 9ff04d5b84743e331e80b589335a52c5480d1815 NOTE: The project maintainers claim that this is not a security issue. They state that the worst outcome this issue can cause is a crash of diff and that it cannot be used to escalate privileges.

The remote Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS / 18.04 LTS / 20.04 LTS / 22.04 LTS / 24.04 LTS / 26.04 LTS host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the USN-8692-1 advisory.

    It was discovered that GNU diffutils incorrectly handled certain integer arithmetic when mapping line     ranges in diff3. A local attacker could possibly use this issue to cause diff3 to crash, resulting in a     denial of service.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

According to the versions of the diffutils packages installed, the EulerOS installation on the remote host is affected by the following vulnerabilities :

    diff3 tool from GNU diffutils is vulnerable to a heapbased buffer overflow due to multiple signed     integer overflows in linemapping calculations. Incorrect arithmetic in mapping line ranges can result     in corrupted values being used for memory allocation and loop bounds.
    When processing crafted diff output, these overflows may cause the application to allocate insufficient     memory and subsequently perform outofbounds writes during internal processing.
    An attacker who can control the output of the diff program used by diff3 (e.g. via --diff-program pointing     to a malicious script) can trigger out-of-bounds writes, resulting in a crash and potentially remote code     execution depending on the environment.


    This issue has been fixed in commit 9ff04d5b84743e331e80b589335a52c5480d1815

    NOTE:
    The project maintainers claim that this is not a security issue. They state that the worst outcome this     issue can cause is a crash of diff and that it cannot be used to escalate privileges.(CVE-2026-53910)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the EulerOS diffutils security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

There are packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability referenced in the following CVE:

  - diff3 tool from GNU diffutils is vulnerable to a heap‑based buffer overflow due to multiple signed integer
    overflows in line‑mapping calculations. Incorrect arithmetic in mapping line ranges can result in
    corrupted values being used for memory allocation and loop bounds. When processing crafted diff output,
    these overflows may cause the application to allocate insufficient memory and subsequently perform
    out‑of‑bounds writes during internal processing. An attacker who can control the output of the diff
    program used by diff3 (e.g. via --diff-program pointing to a malicious script) can trigger out-of-bounds
    writes, resulting in a crash and potentially remote code execution depending on the environment. This
    issue has been fixed in commit 9ff04d5b84743e331e80b589335a52c5480d1815 NOTE: The project maintainers
    claim that this is not a security issue. They state that the worst outcome this issue can cause is a crash
    of diff and that it cannot be used to escalate privileges. (CVE-2026-53910)

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

  - diff3 tool from GNU diffutils is vulnerable to a heapbased buffer overflow due to multiple signed integer     overflows in linemapping calculations. Incorrect arithmetic in mapping line ranges can result in     corrupted values being used for memory allocation and loop bounds. When processing crafted diff output,     these overflows may cause the application to allocate insufficient memory and subsequently perform     outofbounds writes during internal processing. An attacker who can control the output of the diff     program used by diff3 (e.g. via --diff-program pointing to a malicious script) can trigger out-of-bounds     writes, resulting in a crash and potentially remote code execution depending on the environment. This     issue has been fixed in commit 9ff04d5b84743e331e80b589335a52c5480d1815 NOTE: The project maintainers     claim that this is not a security issue. They state that the worst outcome this issue can cause is a crash     of diff and that it cannot be used to escalate privileges. (CVE-2026-53910)

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

ID	Name	Product	Family	Type	Severity
365393	Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS / 18.04 LTS / 20.04 LTS / 22.04 LTS / 24.04 LTS / 26.04 LTS : GNU diffutils vulnerability (USN-8692-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	Local	low
364999	EulerOS 2.0 SP11 : diffutils (EulerOS-SA-2026-4313)	Nessus	Huawei Local Security Checks	Local	low
364907	EulerOS 2.0 SP13 : diffutils (EulerOS-SA-2026-4040)	Nessus	Huawei Local Security Checks	Local	low
364894	EulerOS 2.0 SP13 : diffutils (EulerOS-SA-2026-4131)	Nessus	Huawei Local Security Checks	Local	low
364885	EulerOS 2.0 SP11 : diffutils (EulerOS-SA-2026-4222)	Nessus	Huawei Local Security Checks	Local	low
455566	Echo: diffutils: security update to 1:3.10-4+e1	Tenable Cloud Security	Echo Local Security Checks	Local	low
455566	Echo: diffutils: security update to 1:3.10-4+e1	Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security	Echo Local Security Checks	Local	low
329528	Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-53910	Nessus	Misc.	Local	low

Detections

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CVE-2026-53910

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Tenable Plugins

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