Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-74686

critical Nessus Plugin ID 338911

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.

- rqspinlock: Reset tail when preserving queue on deadlock Currently, the destruction of the waiter queue is suppressed for rqspinlock in cases where a deadlock is detected. Deadlock checks happen relatively frequently (on entry for AA, within 1ms for ABBA), and waiter threads may not be involved in locking scenarios involving deadlocks. Thus, it is useful to not flush the queue and let other waiters take a stab at acquiring the lock after we detect a deadlock and exit. However, we need to follow the same logic as what we did previously for the waitq_timeout label: reset the tail, and if we cannot, signal the next waiter appropriately. In case of deadlocks, this signal would just mark the MCS node as unlocked, and in case of timeouts, it would signal RES_TIMEOUT_VAL. The difference thus is in the value propagated, which decides whether the queue remains active or gets flushed. Not doing the tail reset, and waiting for the next waiter can lead to cases where we are the final waiter, and thus no next waiter arrives, leading to intermittent stalls in this path. Once the next waiter does join, we will be unblocked. In the theoretical case when the next waiter never joins, we risk stalling indefinitely. This can only happen for ABBA deadlocks, since entry into the wait queue is guarded with AA checks. A precise sequence of executions leading up to this scenario can be: CPU 0 holds lock A. CPU 1 holds lock B. CPU 2 attempts lock B, becomes the pending waiter for B. CPU 0 attempts lock B. B has locked+pending bits set, thus CPU 0 queues. CPU 1 attempts lock A. CPU 0 detects an ABBA deadlock. Once deadlock detection happens for CPU 0, it will sit waiting for the next waiter in the queue to populate node->next, which will experience delays until such a waiter arrives. Fix this by adjusting the logic for the check for deadlocks preceding the waitq_timeout label. It would make sense to consolidate code for both cases and use 'ret' to distinguish the value being propagated, but that is left as an exercise for a future refactoring task to avoid diff noise in this patch. (CVE-2026-74686)

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: Critical

ID: 338911

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2026_74686.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: Local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 8/22/2026

Updated: 8/22/2026

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.8

Percentile: 96.41

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-2026-74686

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 9.8

Temporal Score: 9

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:U/RL:U/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:14.0, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux

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: 8/22/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-74686

Detections

Analytics