Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-98234

critical Nessus Plugin ID 363323

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.

- net/sched: hhf: cap hh_flows_limit at change time hhf_change() stores TCA_HHF_HH_FLOWS_LIMIT with no upper bound. A huge hh_flows_limit lets each new heavy-hitter flow pass the hh_flows_current_cnt check in alloc_new_hh() and forces a fixed-size kzalloc(GFP_ATOMIC) per flow under spoofed traffic, for unbounded memory growth. Bound the attribute with NLA_POLICY_MAX() at 2*HH_FLOWS_CNT (the hhf_init() default) and report the rejected value via extack. The deprecated nested parse is kept: legacy tc does not set NLA_F_NESTED on TCA_OPTIONS. Configs relying on hh_limit above the default were relying on unbounded, unsafe behaviour and are not supported going forward. hhf_init() also ran hhf_change() before setting the default hh_flows_limit, so a user-supplied hh_limit at add time was clobbered back to 2048. Set the default before hhf_change() so the configured value sticks. This is a follow-up to commit eb56a495f59b (net/sched: hhf: clamp quantum in change and init paths), which bounded the quantum of the same qdisc;
the hh_flows_limit bound is the remaining unbounded knob of that series' scope. Conditions to recreate the bug: CAP_NET_ADMIN in a user namespace; tc qdisc change dev X root hhf hh_limit 4294967295 succeeds and the value is echoed by tc qdisc show, unbounding heavy-hitter flow allocations; also tc qdisc add dev X root hhf hh_limit 500 stores 2048 instead of 500. (CVE-2026-98234)

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: 363323

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2026_98234.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: Local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 10/6/2026

Updated: 10/6/2026

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

Risk Information

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-2026-98234

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:12.0, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:13.0, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux

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: 10/6/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-98234

Detections

Analytics