Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-31789

high Nessus Plugin ID 305216

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.

- Issue summary: Converting an excessively large OCTET STRING value to a hexadecimal string leads to a heap buffer overflow on 32 bit platforms. Impact summary: A heap buffer overflow may lead to a crash or possibly an attacker controlled code execution or other undefined behavior. If an attacker can supply a crafted X.509 certificate with an excessively large OCTET STRING value in extensions such as the Subject Key Identifier (SKID) or Authority Key Identifier (AKID) which are being converted to hex, the size of the buffer needed for the result is calculated as multiplication of the input length by 3. On 32 bit platforms, this multiplication may overflow resulting in the allocation of a smaller buffer and a heap buffer overflow. Applications and services that print or log contents of untrusted X.509 certificates are vulnerable to this issue. As the certificates would have to have sizes of over 1 Gigabyte, printing or logging such certificates is a fairly unlikely operation and only 32 bit platforms are affected, this issue was assigned Low severity. The FIPS modules in 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.3 and 3.0 are not affected by this issue, as the affected code is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary. (CVE-2026-31789)

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: High

ID: 305216

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2026_31789.nasl

Version: 1.3

Type: Local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 4/7/2026

Updated: 4/8/2026

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: 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-2026-31789

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 8.4

Temporal Score: 7.7

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/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: cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:11.0, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:25.10, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:24.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:openssl, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:edk2, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:22.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:14.0, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:openssl

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: 4/7/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-31789

Detections

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