Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-90648

high Nessus Plugin ID 345464

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.

- wasm2c in WebAssembly wabt through 1.0.41 allows sandbox escape in some situations that primarily involve 32-bit platforms, aka a table flip attack. It does not check the return value of calloc() in wasm_rt_allocate_funcref_table() (wasm2c/wasm-rt-impl-tableops.inc). When the funcref table allocation fails, table->data is left NULL while table->size keeps the guest-declared element count; thus, bounds checks still pass and table element accesses resolve to absolute memory addresses (i * sizeof(wasm_rt_funcref_t)). This gives arbitrary read and write of host process memory and - via table.get, table.set, and call_indirect - arbitrary code execution, defeating the isolation that wasm2c exists to provide (a full sandbox escape). wasm2c is used as an in-process sandboxing boundary by RLBox and WasmBoxC, including in Firefox, which compiles the Graphite, Hunspell, Ogg, Expat, and Woff2 libraries via wasm2c to contain untrusted font, media, and XML input. Therefore, sandboxing in these applications is potentially affected. Exploitation requires the funcref table allocation to fail, for example under an address-space limit (RLIMIT_AS), on 32-bit hosts, with vm.overcommit_memory=2, or under memory pressure.
On 64-bit Linux with default overcommit the allocation succeeds and the defect is not triggered. The wasm2c memory allocator aborts on calloc failure in the same runtime; the table allocator lacks this abort behavior. This was introduced in commit ab9e0b55 (PR #813). (CVE-2026-90648)

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://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-90648

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 345464

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2026_90648.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: Local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 9/13/2026

Updated: 9/13/2026

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5

Percentile: 93.4

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-2026-90648

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 8.8

Temporal Score: 8.1

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

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

CVSS v4

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.1

Threat Score: 4.1

Threat Vector: CVSS:4.0/E:U

Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:H/SA:H

Vulnerability Information

CPE: 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:wabt

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: 9/12/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-90648