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Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-54874

high Nessus Plugin ID 339511

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.

 - Issue summary: Receiving a DTLS record for a future epoch while a handshake is in progress causes OpenSSL to buffer far more memory than the record itself requires. Impact summary: A peer can use a small amount of network traffic to make an OpenSSL DTLS endpoint retain a disproportionately large amount of memory, which may lead to a Denial of Service. CWE: CWE-405: Asymmetric Resource Consumption (Amplification) Description: While a DTLS handshake is in progress, a peer may legitimately have already moved on to the next epoch (for example, having sent its ChangeCipherSpec and Finished messages) before the local endpoint has processed the same transition, typically because of reordering on the underlying UDP transport.
 OpenSSL buffers such early records so that they can be processed once the local endpoint catches up.
 Buffering a record currently retains the entire read buffer it arrived in, which is sized to hold the largest possible DTLS record (around 16 kilobytes), rather than just the bytes that make up the record itself. Up to 100 such records may be buffered per connection. As a result, a peer that sends a stream of small forged records claiming to belong to the next epoch can cause an OpenSSL DTLS endpoint to retain around 1.7 megabytes of memory, despite sending only a small fraction of that amount of data over the network. An attacker therefore gains a memory amplification factor of around 1200, and can multiply the effect across as many associations as it is able to open, making this a remote memory exhaustion Denial of Service risk for DTLS servers. Since the memory retained per connection remains bounded, and any limit an application already places on the number of concurrent associations also bounds the total exposure, this issue has been assessed as Low severity. FIPS impact: no No FIPS modules are affected by this issue as the affected code is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary. OpenSSL 4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.0, 1.1.1 and 1.0.2 are vulnerable to this issue. OpenSSL 4.0 users should upgrade to OpenSSL 4.0.2. OpenSSL 3.6 users should upgrade to OpenSSL 3.6.4. OpenSSL 3.5 users should upgrade to OpenSSL 3.5.8. OpenSSL 3.4 users should upgrade to OpenSSL 3.4.7. OpenSSL 3.0 users should upgrade to OpenSSL 3.0.22. Premium support customers only: OpenSSL 1.1.1 users should upgrade to OpenSSL 1.1.1zi OpenSSL 1.0.2 users should upgrade to OpenSSL 1.0.2zr This issue was reported on 18 May 2026 by Amazon Web Services. The fix has been developed by Matt Caswell. -- cut (non-publishing metadata for internal use) -- Reported by: Amazon Web Services Fixed by: Matt Caswell (CVE-2026-54874)

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://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2026-54874

https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-54874

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 339511

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2026_54874.nasl

Version: 1.2

Type: Local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 8/25/2026

Updated: 8/26/2026

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

Percentile: 23.63

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5

Temporal Score: 4.3

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2026-54874

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:centos:centos:7, cpe:/o:centos:centos:8, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:11.0, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:12.0, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:14.0, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:10, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:9, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:aavmf, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:compat-openssl10, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:compat-openssl11, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:edk2-aarch64, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:edk2-ovmf, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:edk2-tools-doc, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:edk2-tools, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:edk2, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:mingw32-openssl, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:mingw64-openssl, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:mokutil, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:openssl-devel, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:openssl-libs, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:openssl-perl, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:openssl-static, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:openssl, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:ovmf, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:shim-aa64, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:shim-ia32, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:shim-signed, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:shim-unsigned-aarch64, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:shim-unsigned-x64, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:shim-x64, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:shim, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:openssl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:aavmf, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:compat-openssl10, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:compat-openssl11, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:edk2-aarch64, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:edk2-ovmf, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:edk2-tools-doc, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:edk2-tools, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:edk2, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:mingw32-openssl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:mingw64-openssl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:mokutil, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:openssl-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:openssl-libs, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:openssl-perl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:openssl-static, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:openssl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:ovmf, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:shim-aa64, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:shim-ia32, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:shim-signed, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:shim-unsigned-aarch64, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:shim-unsigned-x64, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:shim-x64, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:shim

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

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 8/25/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-54874