Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-74637

critical Nessus Plugin ID 339004

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.

- perf/core: Fix group leader use-after-free after sibling detach perf_group_detach() handles leader and sibling detach differently. When the group leader is detached, all siblings are promoted to singleton events and their group_leader pointer is reset to themselves. When a sibling is detached, it is removed from the leader's sibling_list, but its group_leader pointer is left pointing at the old leader. That is harmless when the sibling is being closed and freed immediately, as in the DETACH_DEAD path. It is not safe when the sibling is detached but kept alive, such as during CPU hotplug with DETACH_GROUP. In that case the sibling is removed from the context, while its file descriptor can still keep it alive. A typical failing sequence is: - A group contains leader L and sibling S. - CPU hot-unplug detaches S with DETACH_GROUP, removing it from L->sibling_list but leaving S->group_leader == L. - L is later closed and freed. - A PERF_IOC_FLAG_GROUP ioctl on S follows S->group_leader and dereferences the freed leader. This was reproduced by running the perf event fuzzer, CPU hotplug, and a stress workload concurrently: Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 006b6b6b6b6b6cdb CPU: 2 PID: 12489 Comm: perf_fuzzer 6.18.7 PREEMPT pc : perf_ioctl+0x34c/0xc68 x20: ffffff89a3fa2c70 x8 : 6b6b6b6b6b6b6b6b Code: 943c4a0e 340047a0 f9404a94 f9411e88 (f940b908) Call trace: perf_ioctl+0x34c/0xc68 (P) __arm64_sys_ioctl+0xa0/0xf4 invoke_syscall+0x58/0xe4 el0_svc_common+0xa8/0xdc do_el0_svc+0x1c/0x28 el0_svc+0x40/0xc0 el0t_64_sync_handler+0x68/0xdc el0t_64_sync+0x1c4/0x1c8 The fault happened in perf_ioctl(), where perf_event_for_each() follows the stale group_leader pointer and perf_event_for_each_child() then dereferences the freed leader's context. Fix the use-after-free by promoting the detached sibling to a singleton. Also fix __event_disable() cgroup accounting and event state change. (CVE-2026-74637)

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: 339004

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2026_74637.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: 4.3

Percentile: 53.5

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-2026-74637

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:11.0, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:12.0, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:13.0, 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-2026-74637

Detections

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