Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-98979

critical Nessus Plugin ID 371498

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.

- namespace: refuse an automount below a mount that is in no namespace It's possible to add autmounts even when the parent mount isn't in the mount namespace of the caller. The only requirement we have is that the parent mount namespace must not be NULL, i.e., unmounted. Problem is that clone_private_mount() has MNT_NS_INTERNAL which makes that trivially true. So that passes the test and attach_recursive_mnt() accepts that as a mount point and funny enough, count_mounts() dereferences MNT_NS_INTERNAL. The problem is it is an error pointer... So we can reach this in userspace via fanotify. A filesystem mark on the lower filesystem of an overlay reports paths on the layer clone and reading the event hands out a descriptor on it. For example with debugfs as the lower layer it goes kaboom: openat(evfd, tracing, O_DIRECTORY) Oops: general protection fault KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x1d0-0x1d7] RIP:
0010:count_mounts+0x35/0x200 attach_recursive_mnt finish_automount And since that sleeping beauty happens under namespace_sem held for writing every mount operation on the system blocks from then on. Congrats.
Use is_mounted() instead which rejects unmounted and internal mounts alike. The open fails with EINVAL just as it did before clone_private_mount() used MNT_NS_INTERNAL. (CVE-2026-98979)

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: 371498

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2026_98979.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: Local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 10/23/2026

Updated: 10/23/2026

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 4.9

Percentile: 58.51

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-2026-98979

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, 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: 10/23/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-98979

Detections

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