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Ubuntu 16.04 LTS / 18.04 LTS / 20.04 LTS : GnuTLS vulnerabilities (USN-8502-1)

critical Nessus Plugin ID 325430

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Synopsis

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

Description

The remote Ubuntu 16.04 LTS / 18.04 LTS / 20.04 LTS host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the USN-8502-1 advisory.

 It was discovered that GnuTLS had a timing side-channel when processing malformed ciphertexts in RSA-PSK ClientKeyExchange. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to recover sensitive information. This issue only affected Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. (CVE-2024-0553)

 Bing Shi discovered that GnuTLS incorrectly handled decoding certain DER-encoded certificates. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause GnuTLS to consume resources, leading to a denial of service. This issue only affected Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. (CVE-2024-12243)

 Luigino Camastra discovered that GnuTLS incorrectly handled certain PKCS11 token labels. A remote attacker could use this issue to cause GnuTLS to crash, resulting in a denial of service, or possibly execute arbitrary code. The default compiler options for affected releases should reduce the vulnerability to a denial of service. (CVE-2025-9820)

 Tim Scheckenbach discovered that GnuTLS incorrectly handled malicious certificates containing a large number of name constraints and subject alternative names. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause GnuTLS to consume resources, resulting in a denial of service. This issue only affected Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. (CVE-2025-14831)

 Oleh Konko and Joshua Rogers discovered that GnuTLS did not properly handle case-insensitive name constraints in certain cases. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to bypass certificate validation, leading to a machine-in-the-middle attack. (CVE-2026-3833)

 Joshua Rogers discovered that GnuTLS did not properly handle very short premaster secrets in certain RSA key exchange cases with PKCS#11-backed server keys. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to obtain sensitive information. This issue only affected Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.
 (CVE-2026-5260)

 Joshua Rogers discovered that GnuTLS did not properly handle malformed DTLS handshake fragments in certain cases. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to obtain sensitive information, or cause a denial of service. This issue only affected Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. (CVE-2026-33845)

 Haruto Kimura, Oscar Reparaz, and Zou Dikai discovered that GnuTLS did not properly validate DTLS handshake fragment lengths in certain cases. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause GnuTLS to crash, resulting in a denial of service, or execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2026-33846)

 Joshua Rogers discovered that GnuTLS did not properly order DTLS packets with duplicate sequence numbers in certain cases. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause GnuTLS to crash, resulting in a denial of service. (CVE-2026-42009)

 Joshua Rogers discovered that GnuTLS did not properly handle usernames containing NUL characters in certain RSA-PSK configurations. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to bypass authentication and gain unintended access to services. This issue only affected Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. (CVE-2026-42010)

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 packages.

See Also

https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8502-1

Plugin Details

Severity: Critical

ID: 325430

File Name: ubuntu_USN-8502-1.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: Local

Agent: unix

Published: 7/7/2026

Updated: 7/7/2026

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 4.9

Percentile: 57.88

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 10

Temporal Score: 7.8

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2026-42010

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 9.8

Temporal Score: 8.8

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:P/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:guile-gnutls, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:16.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:libgnutls-openssl27, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:gnutls-bin, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:libgnutls-dev, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:18.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:libgnutls30, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:libgnutlsxx28, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:libgnutls-dane0, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:20.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:libgnutls28-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: 7/6/2026

Vulnerability Publication Date: 6/13/2023

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2024-0553, CVE-2024-12243, CVE-2025-14831, CVE-2025-9820, CVE-2026-33845, CVE-2026-33846, CVE-2026-3833, CVE-2026-42009, CVE-2026-42010, CVE-2026-5260

USN: 8502-1