Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-42566

high Nessus Plugin ID 328324

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.

- Meshtastic is an open source mesh networking solution. Prior to version 2.7.23.b246bcd, a single node advertising a User.long_name that contains a malformed character encoding can render other radios unusable over BLE when managed through the iOS app. The malformed name does not need to be maliciously crafted it can arise from ordinary buffer truncation and has been observed occurring naturally in the wild. At least one code path could place a null terminator in the middle of a multibyte sequence, leaving a malformed User.long_name in the node database. The problem surfaced downstream: the iOS app enforced encoding validation and therefore cannot parse a node database once it contains a poisoned entry. This caused BLE sync to enter a fail/retry loop, resulting in loss of control over the affected device. For a typical user managing their radio with the iOS app, the device becomes effectively unusable until the poisoned node ages out of the on-device database, or unless they have an alternate management path (e.g., the Python CLI, which can be used to identify and remove the offending entries manually). Because the malformed name propagates through the mesh, the temporary presence of a single affected node can degrade BLE management for iOS users across a wide geographical area for an extended period. Less technical users have no straightforward recovery path. Starting in version 2.7.23.b246bcd, the firmware has added input sanitization and regression tests demonstrating recovery for already-poisoned devices. The apps have also taken steps to ensure more graceful handling of malformed encoding sequences as well. (CVE-2026-42566)

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-2026-42566

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 328324

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2026_42566.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: Local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 7/20/2026

Updated: 7/20/2026

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 3

Percentile: 23.76

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.5

Temporal Score: 6.9

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

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2026-42566

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:26.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:meshtastic

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

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 7/20/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-42566