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Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS / 20.04 LTS / 22.04 LTS / 24.04 LTS : jq vulnerabilities (USN-8202-1)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 310123

Synopsis

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

Description

The remote Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS / 20.04 LTS / 22.04 LTS / 24.04 LTS host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the USN-8202-1 advisory.

 It was discovered that jq did not correctly handle certain string concatenations. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service or execute arbitrary code. This issue was addressed in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and Ubuntu 25.10. (CVE-2026-32316)

 It was discovered that jq did not correctly handle recursion in certain circumstances. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2026-33947)

 It was discovered that jq did not correctly handle improperly terminated strings. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service or execute arbitrary code. This issue was addressed in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and Ubuntu 25.10. (CVE-2026-33948)

 It was discovered that jq did not correctly handle checking certain variable types. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service or leak sensitive information. This issue was addressed in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and Ubuntu 25.10. (CVE-2026-39956)

 It was discovered that jq did not correctly handle certain string formatting. An attacker could possibly use this issue to leak sensitive information or cause a denial of service. (CVE-2026-39979)

 It was discovered that jq used a fixed seed for hash table operations. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service. This issue was addressed in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and Ubuntu 25.10. (CVE-2026-40164)

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 jq, libjq-dev and / or libjq1 packages.

See Also

https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8202-1

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 310123

File Name: ubuntu_USN-8202-1.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: Local

Agent: unix

Published: 4/24/2026

Updated: 4/24/2026

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Continuous Assessment, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.0

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.4

Temporal Score: 5

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2026-39979

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.5

Temporal Score: 5.9

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

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

CVSS v4

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.9

Threat Score: 5.5

Threat Vector: CVSS:4.0/E:P

Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:14.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:20.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:24.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:16.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:libjq1, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:22.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:jq, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:libjq-dev

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

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 4/23/2026

Vulnerability Publication Date: 11/13/2025

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-32316, CVE-2026-33947, CVE-2026-33948, CVE-2026-39956, CVE-2026-39979, CVE-2026-40164

IAVB: 2025-B-0188

USN: 8202-1