Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-41579

low Nessus Plugin ID 320986

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.

- runc is a CLI tool for spawning and running containers according to the OCI specification. In versions prior to 1.3.6, 1.4.0-rc.1, 1.4.0-rc.12, 1.5.0-rc.1, and 1.5.0-rc.1, when setting up the container rootfs, setupPtmx and setupDevSymlinks call os.Remove and os.Symlink with a filepath.Join string which allow an image with /dev as a symlink to trick runc into deleting files called ptmx on the host or creating a hardcoded set of symlinks with specific names and targets in an arbitrary pre-existing host directory.
This issue is not exploitable under Docker, because Docker creates a top-level read-only layer that masks any malicious /dev symlink present in the container image unlike some other Linux container tooling, whose higher-level runtimes built on runc remain exposed to exploitation via a malicious image. This issue has been fixed in versions 1.3.6, 1.4.3 and 1.5.0. (CVE-2026-41579)

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://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-41579

https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2026-41579

Plugin Details

Severity: Low

ID: 320986

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2026_41579.nasl

Version: 1.2

Type: Local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 6/13/2026

Updated: 7/1/2026

Supported Sensors: Agentless Assessment, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Nessus Agent, Tenable Cloud Security, Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 3.2

Percentile: 51.08

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.8

Temporal Score: 4.9

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2026-41579

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Low

Base Score: 3.3

Temporal Score: 3.1

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

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:20.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:25.10, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:runc-stable, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:24.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:16.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:18.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:13.0, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:runc, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:22.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:14.0, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:runc-app, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:runc, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:12.0, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:26.04:-:lts

Required KB Items: Host/cpu, Host/local_checks_enabled, global_settings/vendor_unpatched, Host/OS/identifier

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-41579