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TI-2025-13049 Aliases CVE-2025-14282GHSA-xqcm-jrw9-wq72

Dropbear: privilege escalation via unix domain socket forwardings

Priority LOW 25CWE-266Published · Updated

Key facts

Attack vector
Network
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Attack complexity
Low
Impact type
Privilege escalation
Confidentiality · integrity · availability
Low · Low · None
Fix status
Fixed

Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA. Impact type from CWE-266.

Summary

A flaw was found in Dropbear. When running in multi-user mode and authenticating users, the dropbear ssh server does the socket forwardings requested by the remote client as root, only switching to the logged-in user upon spawning a shell or performing some operations like reading the user's files. With the recent ability of also using unix domain sockets as the forwarding destination any user able to log in via ssh can connect to any unix socket with the root's credentials, bypassing both file system restrictions and any SO_PEERCRED / SO_PASSCRED checks performed by the peer.

Why it matters now

Exploitation None reported CISA SSVC · not in CISA KEV
EPSS 0.00405 35th percentileScored 2026-11-07
Fix Fixed dropbear (https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/): 2025.88

SSVC decision points

CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3

Exploitation
None
Automatable
No
Technical impact
Partial

The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.

Affected products

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed inStatusSource
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/dropbear2024.84 to before 2025.882025.88Patch availableCNA

Remediation

  • Fix · CNA dropbear (https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/) Fixed in 2025.88

Vendor assessments

Red Hat

Red Hat's page for this CVE →

Not affected: 1 product
  • Red Hat

Timeline

  1. 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2025-14282
  2. 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-xqcm-jrw9-wq72

References

Sources