RHEL 9 : qemu-kvm (RHSA-2026:88421)

high Nessus Plugin ID 370900

Synopsis

The remote Red Hat host is missing a security update.

Description

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 9 host has packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the RHSA-2026:88421 advisory.

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on a variety of architectures. The qemu-kvm packages provide the user-space component for running virtual machines that use KVM.

Security Fix(es):

* qemu-kvm: qemu-guest-agent: Local privilege escalation via symlink attack in guest-ssh-add-authorized- keys (CVE-2026-12080)

Bug Fix(es) and Enhancement(s):

* qemu-img can't create a qcow2 overlay with 'data_file' feature on top of a file without destroying the original image [rhel-9.8.z] (JIRA:RHEL-164549)

* live migration of a VM with a scsi3pr to a node that previously held a reservation on that disk fails.
[rhel-9.8.z] (JIRA:RHEL-280223)

* Fix pending QEMU issues for L1VH GA - QEMU [rhel-9.8.z] (JIRA:RHEL-283121)

For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

Solution

Update the affected packages.

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 370900

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2026-88421.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: Local

Agent: unix

Family: Red Hat Local Security Checks

Published: 10/22/2026

Updated: 10/22/2026

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Continuous Assessment, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 4.9

Percentile: 58.15

Vendor

Vendor Severity: Important

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.8

Temporal Score: 5

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2026-12080

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.3

Temporal Score: 6.4

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

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:9, cpe:/o:redhat:rhel_eus:9.8, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-guest-agent, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-img, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-kvm-audio-pa, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-kvm-block-blkio, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-kvm-block-curl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-kvm-block-rbd, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-kvm-common, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-kvm-core, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-kvm-device-display-virtio-gpu-ccw, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-kvm-device-display-virtio-gpu-pci, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-kvm-device-display-virtio-gpu, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-kvm-device-display-virtio-vga, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-kvm-device-usb-host, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-kvm-device-usb-redirect, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-kvm-docs, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-kvm-tools, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-kvm-ui-egl-headless, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-kvm-ui-opengl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-kvm, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:qemu-pr-helper

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/RedHat/release, Host/RedHat/rpm-list, Host/cpu

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 10/22/2026

Vulnerability Publication Date: 7/20/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-12080

CWE: 61

RHSA: 2026:88421

Detections

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