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Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS / 18.04 LTS / 20.04 LTS : Gnuplot vulnerabilities (USN-7589-1)

critical Nessus Plugin ID 240563

Synopsis

The remote Ubuntu host is missing one or more security updates.

Description

The remote Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS / 18.04 LTS / 20.04 LTS host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the USN-7589-1 advisory.

 Tim Blazytko, Cornelius Aschermann, Sergej Schumilo, and Nils Bars discovered that Gnuplot had several memory-related issues. An attacker could possibly use these issues to cause Gnuplot to experience a buffer overflow, resulting in a denial of service or arbitrary code execution. These issues only affected Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. (CVE-2018-19490, CVE-2018-19491, CVE-2018-19492)

 It was discovered that Gnuplot could write out-of-bounds due to the use of strncpy(). An attacker could possibly use this issue to enable the execution of arbitrary code. This issue only affected Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. (CVE-2020-25412)

 It was discovered that Gnuplot incorrectly freed memory when executing print_set_output(). An attacker could possibly use this issue to enable the execution of arbitrary code. (CVE-2020-25559)

 It was discovered that Gnuplot's plotrequest() function contained a buffer overflow. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause Gnuplot to crash, resulting in a denial of service or arbitrary code execution. (CVE-2020-25969)

 It was discovered that Gnuplot's boundary3d() function could be made to divide by zero. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause Gnuplot to crash, resulting in a denial of service. (CVE-2021-44917)

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

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

Solution

Update the affected packages.

See Also

https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-7589-1

Plugin Details

Severity: Critical

ID: 240563

File Name: ubuntu_USN-7589-1.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 6/26/2025

Updated: 6/26/2025

Supported Sensors: Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Nessus Agent, Agentless Assessment, Continuous Assessment, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 6.7

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.5

Temporal Score: 5.9

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2020-25412

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 9.8

Temporal Score: 8.8

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:P/RL:O/RC:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2020-25969

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:18.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:16.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:20.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:gnuplot, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:gnuplot-data, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:gnuplot-nox, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:gnuplot-qt, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:gnuplot-tex, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:gnuplot-x11, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:14.04:-:lts

Required KB Items: Host/cpu, Host/Debian/dpkg-l, Host/Ubuntu, Host/Ubuntu/release

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 6/23/2025

Vulnerability Publication Date: 11/23/2018

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2018-19490, CVE-2018-19491, CVE-2018-19492, CVE-2020-25412, CVE-2020-25559, CVE-2020-25969, CVE-2021-44917

USN: 7589-1