Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2023-4001

medium Nessus Plugin ID 259199

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Synopsis

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed with a vulnerability that the vendor indicates will not be patched.

Description

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

- An authentication bypass flaw was found in GRUB due to the way that GRUB uses the UUID of a device to search for the configuration file that contains the password hash for the GRUB password protection feature. An attacker capable of attaching an external drive such as a USB stick containing a file system with a duplicate UUID (the same as in the /boot/ file system) can bypass the GRUB password protection feature on UEFI systems, which enumerate removable drives before non-removable ones. This issue was introduced in a downstream patch in Red Hat's version of grub2 and does not affect the upstream package.
(CVE-2023-4001)

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

Solution

There is no known solution at this time.

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 259199

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2023_4001.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 8/30/2025

Updated: 8/30/2025

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 6.7

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Low

Base Score: 3.6

Temporal Score: 2.7

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2023-4001

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.8

Temporal Score: 5.9

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

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:grub2-signed, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:14.04:-:lts

Required KB Items: Host/cpu, Host/local_checks_enabled, global_settings/vendor_unpatched, Host/OS/identifier

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 1/15/2024

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2023-4001

Detections

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