Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-23177

critical Nessus Plugin ID 299097

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.

- mm, shmem: prevent infinite loop on truncate race When truncating a large swap entry, shmem_free_swap() returns 0 when the entry's index doesn't match the given index due to lookup alignment. The failure fallback path checks if the entry crosses the end border and aborts when it happens, so truncate won't erase an unexpected entry or range. But one scenario was ignored. When `index` points to the middle of a large swap entry, and the large swap entry doesn't go across the end border, find_get_entries() will return that large swap entry as the first item in the batch with `indices[0]` equal to `index`. The entry's base index will be smaller than `indices[0]`, so shmem_free_swap() will fail and return 0 due to the base < index check. The code will then call shmem_confirm_swap(), get the order, check if it crosses the END boundary (which it doesn't), and retry with the same index. The next iteration will find the same entry again at the same index with same indices, leading to an infinite loop. Fix this by retrying with a round-down index, and abort if the index is smaller than the truncate range. (CVE-2026-23177)

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: Critical

ID: 299097

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2026_23177.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 2/14/2026

Updated: 2/14/2026

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 4.4

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.5

Temporal Score: 6.4

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2026-23177

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 9.8

Temporal Score: 9

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:U/RL:U/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:14.0, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:13.0

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: 2/14/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-23177

Detections

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