Detections
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Ubuntu 20.04 LTS / 22.04 LTS / 24.04 LTS / 25.10 : cJSON vulnerabilities (USN-7973-1)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 296748

Synopsis

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

Description

The remote Ubuntu 20.04 LTS / 22.04 LTS / 24.04 LTS / 25.10 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the USN-7973-1 advisory.

 It was discovered that cJSON incorrectly handled parsing large numbers. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2023-26819)

 It was discovered that cJSON may perform out-of-bounds read when processing specially crafted JSON files using parse_object. An attacker could possibly use this issue to expose sensitive information or crash the program. (CVE-2023-53154)

 It was discovered that cJSON incorrectly validated array indices in JSON pointers, which could result in an out-of-bounds memory access. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service, or execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2025-57052)

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 libcjson-dev and / or libcjson1 packages.

See Also

https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-7973-1

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 296748

File Name: ubuntu_USN-7973-1.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 1/27/2026

Updated: 1/27/2026

Supported Sensors: Continuous Assessment, Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 6.7

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.6

Temporal Score: 3.6

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2023-53154

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.5

Temporal Score: 5

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

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:libcjson1, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:20.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:25.10, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:24.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:22.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:libcjson-dev

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

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 1/23/2026

Vulnerability Publication Date: 4/19/2025

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2023-26819, CVE-2023-53154, CVE-2025-57052

USN: 7973-1