CVE-2026-24061
CRITICAL severity · CVSS 9.8 · CWE-88 · actively exploited (CISA KEV)
9.8CVSS CRITICAL exploited
Actively exploited in the wild (CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities).
Added to KEV 2026-01-26. US federal agencies must patch by 2026-02-16.
Summary
telnetd in GNU Inetutils through 2.7 allows remote authentication bypass via a "-f root" value for the USER environment variable.
Impact & exploitability
Attack vectorNetwork
Attack complexityLow
Privileges requiredNone
User interactionNone
Confidentiality impactHigh
Integrity impactHigh
Availability impactHigh
Exploit probability (EPSS)99%
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Affected products we track (1)
Recommendation
This vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild — patch affected products urgently. Open any affected product above for its exact safe version.
Official patch: https://codeberg.org/inetutils/inetutils/commit/ccba9f748aa8d50a38d7748e2e60362edd6a32cc ↗
Additional information
- NVD record
- https://codeberg.org/inetutils/inetutils/commit/ccba9f748aa8d50a38d7748e2e60362edd6a32ccPatch
- https://codeberg.org/inetutils/inetutils/commit/fd702c02497b2f398e739e3119bed0b23dd7aa7bPatch
- https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-inetutils/2026-01/msg00004.htmlAdvisory
- https://www.gnu.org/software/inetutils/
- https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/01/20/2
- https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/01/20/8
- https://www.vicarius.io/vsociety/posts/cve-2026-24061-detection-script-remote-authentication-bypass-in-gnu-inetutils-packageAdvisory
- https://redteam.ae/blog/cve-2026-24061-inetutils-telnetd-root-bypassAdvisory