Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS / 18.04 LTS / 20.04 LTS / 22.04 LTS / 24.04 LTS / 25.10 : MUNGE vulnerability (USN-8040-1)

high Nessus Plugin ID 299055

Synopsis

The remote Ubuntu host is missing a security update.

Description

The remote Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS / 18.04 LTS / 20.04 LTS / 22.04 LTS / 24.04 LTS / 25.10 host has packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the USN-8040-1 advisory.

Titouan Lazard discovered that MUNGE contained an exploitable buffer overflow in munged (the MUNGE authentication daemon). A local attacker could possibly use this issue to forge MUNGE credentials, leading to arbitrary code execution.

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.

Solution

Update the affected libmunge-dev, libmunge2 and / or munge packages.

See Also

https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8040-1

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 299055

File Name: ubuntu_USN-8040-1.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 2/14/2026

Updated: 2/14/2026

Supported Sensors: Continuous Assessment, Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Critical

Score: 9.2

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.7

Temporal Score: 4.2

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2026-25506

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.7

Temporal Score: 6.7

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

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:16.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:22.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:24.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:libmunge-dev, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:libmunge2, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:munge, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:18.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:25.10, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:14.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:20.04:-:lts

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

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 2/12/2026

Vulnerability Publication Date: 2/10/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-25506

USN: 8040-1