Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-26981

medium Nessus Plugin ID 299904

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.

- OpenEXR provides the specification and reference implementation of the EXR file format, an image storage format for the motion picture industry. In versions 3.3.0 through 3.3.6 and 3.4.0 through 3.4.4, a heap- buffer-overflow (OOB read) occurs in the `istream_nonparallel_read` function in `ImfContextInit.cpp` when parsing a malformed EXR file through a memory-mapped `IStream`. A signed integer subtraction produces a negative value that is implicitly converted to `size_t`, resulting in a massive length being passed to `memcpy`. Versions 3.3.7 and 3.4.5 contain a patch. (CVE-2026-26981)

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

Solution

There is no known solution at this time.

See Also

https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2026-26981

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 299904

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2026_26981.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 2/25/2026

Updated: 2/25/2026

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 4.4

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.8

Temporal Score: 4.9

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2026-26981

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.5

Temporal Score: 6

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

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: 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:16.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:18.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:openexr, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:22.04:-: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: 2/24/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-26981