Amazon Linux 2 : expat (ALAS-2026-3965)

#%NASL_MIN_LEVEL 80900
##
# (C) Tenable, Inc.
#
# The descriptive text and package checks in this plugin were
# extracted from Amazon Linux 2 Security Advisory ALAS-2026-3965.
##

include('compat.inc');

if (description)
{
  script_id(365267);
  script_version("1.1");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"plugin_modification_date", value:"2026/10/12");

  script_cve_id("CVE-2026-66046");
  script_xref(name:"IAVA", value:"2026-A-0925-S");

  script_name(english:"Amazon Linux 2 : expat (ALAS-2026-3965)");

  script_set_attribute(attribute:"synopsis", value:
"The remote Amazon Linux 2 host is missing a security update.");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"description", value:
"The version of expat installed on the remote host is prior to 2.1.0-15. It is, therefore, affected by a vulnerability as
referenced in the ALAS2-2026-3965 advisory.

    Expat through 2.8.3 contains a denial of service vulnerability caused by quadratic algorithmic complexity
    in the storeAtts() function in xmlparse.c, where processing N specified attributes with non-normalized
    values triggers an O(N^2) linear scan of elementType->defaultAtts to determine CDATA status. A remote
    unauthenticated attacker can supply a single well-formed XML document of a few megabytes to an application
    parsing untrusted XML to cause excessive CPU consumption, resulting in denial of service without requiring
    authentication, external entity resolution, or non-default parser options. (CVE-2026-66046)

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

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version
number.");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"see_also", value:"https://alas.aws.amazon.com//AL2/ALAS2-2026-3965.html");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"see_also", value:"https://alas.aws.amazon.com/faqs.html");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"see_also", value:"https://explore.alas.aws.amazon.com/CVE-2026-66046.html");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"solution", value:
"Run 'yum update expat' or
  or 'yum update --advisory ALAS2-2026-3965' to update your system.");
  script_set_cvss_base_vector("CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C");
  script_set_cvss_temporal_vector("CVSS2#E:POC/RL:OF/RC:C");
  script_set_cvss3_base_vector("CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H");
  script_set_cvss3_temporal_vector("CVSS:3.0/E:P/RL:O/RC:C");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cvss4_vector", value:"CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cvss4_threat_vector", value:"CVSS:4.0/E:P");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cvss_score_source", value:"CVE-2026-66046");

  script_set_attribute(attribute:"exploitability_ease", value:"Exploits are available");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"exploit_available", value:"true");

  script_set_attribute(attribute:"vuln_publication_date", value:"2026/08/18");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"patch_publication_date", value:"2026/10/12");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"plugin_publication_date", value:"2026/10/12");

  script_set_attribute(attribute:"plugin_type", value:"local");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:expat");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:expat-debuginfo");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:expat-devel");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:expat-static");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"cpe:/o:amazon:linux:2");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"generated_plugin", value:"current");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"stig_severity", value:"I");
  script_end_attributes();

  script_category(ACT_GATHER_INFO);
  script_family(english:"Amazon Linux Local Security Checks");

  script_copyright(english:"This script is Copyright (C) 2026 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.");

  script_dependencies("ssh_get_info2.nasl");
  script_require_keys("Host/local_checks_enabled", "Host/AmazonLinux/release", "Host/AmazonLinux/rpm-list");

  exit(0);
}

include("rpm2.inc");

if (!get_kb_item("Host/local_checks_enabled")) audit(AUDIT_LOCAL_CHECKS_NOT_ENABLED);

var alas_release = get_kb_item("Host/AmazonLinux/release");
if (isnull(alas_release) || !strlen(alas_release)) audit(AUDIT_OS_NOT, "Amazon Linux");
var os_ver = pregmatch(pattern: "^AL(A|\d+|-\d+)", string:alas_release);
if (isnull(os_ver)) audit(AUDIT_UNKNOWN_APP_VER, "Amazon Linux");
os_ver = os_ver[1];
if (os_ver != "2")
{
  if (os_ver == 'A') os_ver = 'AMI';
  audit(AUDIT_OS_NOT, "Amazon Linux 2", "Amazon Linux " + os_ver);
}

if (!get_kb_item("Host/AmazonLinux/rpm-list")) audit(AUDIT_PACKAGE_LIST_MISSING);

var pkgs = [
    {'reference':'expat-2.1.0-15.amzn2.0.9', 'cpu':'aarch64', 'release':'AL2', 'rpm_spec_vers_cmp':TRUE},
    {'reference':'expat-2.1.0-15.amzn2.0.9', 'cpu':'i686', 'release':'AL2', 'rpm_spec_vers_cmp':TRUE},
    {'reference':'expat-2.1.0-15.amzn2.0.9', 'cpu':'x86_64', 'release':'AL2', 'rpm_spec_vers_cmp':TRUE},
    {'reference':'expat-debuginfo-2.1.0-15.amzn2.0.9', 'cpu':'aarch64', 'release':'AL2', 'rpm_spec_vers_cmp':TRUE},
    {'reference':'expat-debuginfo-2.1.0-15.amzn2.0.9', 'cpu':'i686', 'release':'AL2', 'rpm_spec_vers_cmp':TRUE},
    {'reference':'expat-debuginfo-2.1.0-15.amzn2.0.9', 'cpu':'x86_64', 'release':'AL2', 'rpm_spec_vers_cmp':TRUE},
    {'reference':'expat-devel-2.1.0-15.amzn2.0.9', 'cpu':'aarch64', 'release':'AL2', 'rpm_spec_vers_cmp':TRUE},
    {'reference':'expat-devel-2.1.0-15.amzn2.0.9', 'cpu':'i686', 'release':'AL2', 'rpm_spec_vers_cmp':TRUE},
    {'reference':'expat-devel-2.1.0-15.amzn2.0.9', 'cpu':'x86_64', 'release':'AL2', 'rpm_spec_vers_cmp':TRUE},
    {'reference':'expat-static-2.1.0-15.amzn2.0.9', 'cpu':'aarch64', 'release':'AL2', 'rpm_spec_vers_cmp':TRUE},
    {'reference':'expat-static-2.1.0-15.amzn2.0.9', 'cpu':'i686', 'release':'AL2', 'rpm_spec_vers_cmp':TRUE},
    {'reference':'expat-static-2.1.0-15.amzn2.0.9', 'cpu':'x86_64', 'release':'AL2', 'rpm_spec_vers_cmp':TRUE}
];

var flag = 0;
foreach var package_array ( pkgs ) {
  var reference = NULL;
  var _release = NULL;
  var sp = NULL;
  var _cpu = NULL;
  var el_string = NULL;
  var rpm_spec_vers_cmp = NULL;
  var epoch = NULL;
  var allowmaj = NULL;
  var exists_check = NULL;
  var cves = NULL;
  if (!empty_or_null(package_array['reference'])) reference = package_array['reference'];
  if (!empty_or_null(package_array['release'])) _release = package_array['release'];
  if (!empty_or_null(package_array['sp'])) sp = package_array['sp'];
  if (!empty_or_null(package_array['cpu'])) _cpu = package_array['cpu'];
  if (!empty_or_null(package_array['el_string'])) el_string = package_array['el_string'];
  if (!empty_or_null(package_array['rpm_spec_vers_cmp'])) rpm_spec_vers_cmp = package_array['rpm_spec_vers_cmp'];
  if (!empty_or_null(package_array['epoch'])) epoch = package_array['epoch'];
  if (!empty_or_null(package_array['allowmaj'])) allowmaj = package_array['allowmaj'];
  if (!empty_or_null(package_array['exists_check'])) exists_check = package_array['exists_check'];
  if (!empty_or_null(package_array['cves'])) cves = package_array['cves'];
  if (reference && _release && (!exists_check || rpm_exists(release:_release, rpm:exists_check))) {
    if (rpm_check(release:_release, sp:sp, cpu:_cpu, reference:reference, epoch:epoch, el_string:el_string, rpm_spec_vers_cmp:rpm_spec_vers_cmp, allowmaj:allowmaj, cves:cves)) flag++;
  }
}

if (flag)
{
  security_report_v4(
      port       : 0,
      severity   : SECURITY_HOLE,
      extra      : rpm_report_get()
  );
  exit(0);
}
else
{
  var tested = pkg_tests_get();
  if (tested) audit(AUDIT_PACKAGE_NOT_AFFECTED, tested);
  else audit(AUDIT_PACKAGE_NOT_INSTALLED, "expat / expat-debuginfo / expat-devel / etc");
}