The remote Ubuntu 18.04 ESM / 20.04 LTS / 22.04 LTS / 23.04 / 23.10 host has packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the USN-6580-1 advisory.

    It was discovered that w3m incorrectly handled certain HTML files. An attacker could possibly use this     issue to cause a crash or execute arbitrary code.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory.

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

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

  - An out-of-bounds write issue has been discovered in the backspace handling of the checkType() function in     etc.c within the W3M application. This vulnerability is triggered by supplying a specially crafted HTML     file to the w3m binary. Exploitation of this flaw could lead to application crashes, resulting in a denial     of service condition. (CVE-2023-4255)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

The remote SUSE Linux SLES12 / SLES_SAP12 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the SUSE-SU-2024:0014-1 advisory.

  - An out-of-bounds write issue has been discovered in the backspace handling of the checkType() function in     etc.c within the W3M application. This vulnerability is triggered by supplying a specially crafted HTML     file to the w3m binary. Exploitation of this flaw could lead to application crashes, resulting in a denial     of service condition. (CVE-2023-4255)

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

The version of Tencent Linux installed on the remote TencentOS Server 4 host is prior to tested version. It is, therefore, affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the TSSA-2025:0165 advisory.

    Package updates are available for TencentOS Server 4 that fix the following vulnerabilities:

    CVE-2023-4255:
    An out-of-bounds write issue has been discovered in the backspace handling of the checkType() function in     etc.c within the W3M application. This vulnerability is triggered by supplying a specially crafted HTML     file to the w3m binary. Exploitation of this flaw could lead to application crashes, resulting in a denial     of service condition.

    CVE-2023-38253:
    An out-of-bounds read flaw was found in w3m, in the growbuf_to_Str function in indep.c. This issue may     allow an attacker to cause a denial of service through a crafted HTML file.

    CVE-2023-38252:
    An out-of-bounds read flaw was found in w3m, in the Strnew_size function in Str.c. This issue may allow an     attacker to cause a denial of service through a crafted HTML file.

    CVE-2022-38223:
    There is an out-of-bounds write in checkType located in etc.c in w3m 0.5.3. It can be triggered by sending     a crafted HTML file to the w3m binary. It allows an attacker to cause Denial of Service or possibly have     unspecified other impact.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Tencent Linux security advisory.

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

The remote Fedora 40 host has a package installed that is affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the FEDORA-2024-aeb75f8b5b advisory.

    - Added upstream patch to fix out-of-bounds access due to multiple backspaces to address incomplete fix     for CVE-2022-38223 (#2222775, #2222780, #2255207)


Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory.

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

The remote Fedora 38 host has a package installed that is affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the FEDORA-2024-38c2261ca0 advisory.

    - Added upstream patch to fix out-of-bounds access due to multiple backspaces to address incomplete fix     for CVE-2022-38223 (#2222775, #2222780, #2255207)


Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory.

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

The remote Fedora 39 host has a package installed that is affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the FEDORA-2024-3fc66f8bf3 advisory.

    - Added upstream patch to fix out-of-bounds access due to multiple backspaces to address incomplete fix     for CVE-2022-38223 (#2222775, #2222780, #2255207)


Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory.

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

ID	Name	Product	Family	Published	Updated	Severity
188048	Ubuntu 18.04 ESM / 20.04 LTS / 22.04 LTS / 23.04 / 23.10 : w3m vulnerability (USN-6580-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	1/15/2024	8/27/2024	medium
226996	Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2023-4255	Nessus	Misc.	3/5/2025	8/18/2025	medium
187493	SUSE SLES12 Security Update : w3m (SUSE-SU-2024:0014-1)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	1/3/2024	1/3/2024	medium
239825	TencentOS Server 4: w3m (TSSA-2025:0165)	Nessus	Tencent Local Security Checks	6/16/2025	12/4/2025	high
194642	Fedora 40 : w3m (2024-aeb75f8b5b)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	4/29/2024	11/14/2024	high
192593	Fedora 38 : w3m (2024-38c2261ca0)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	3/26/2024	11/14/2024	high
192594	Fedora 39 : w3m (2024-3fc66f8bf3)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	3/26/2024	11/14/2024	high

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