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Fencer Intel
high 7.4

CVE-2026-28372 json

telnetd in GNU inetutils through 2.7 allows privilege escalation that can be exploited by abusing systemd service credentials support added…

published 8mo ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2026-9000

cvss
7.4
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 36%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

telnetd in GNU inetutils through 2.7 allows privilege escalation that can be exploited by abusing systemd service credentials support added to the login(1) implementation of util-linux in release 2.40. This is related to client control over the CREDENTIALS_DIRECTORY environment variable, and requires an unprivileged local user to create a login.noauth file.

Patch / fix

  • inetutils Debian 12 2:2.4-2+deb12u3
  • inetutils Debian 13 2:2.6-3+deb13u2
  • inetutils Debian 14 2:2.7-3

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-28372

  • inetutils Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 2:2.5-3ubuntu4.2
  • inetutils Ubuntu 25.10 2:2.6-1ubuntu3.2
  • inetutils Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 2:2.7-2ubuntu1.1
  • inetutils Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 2:1.9.2-1ubuntu0.1~esm4
  • inetutils Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 2:1.9.4-1ubuntu0.1~esm6
  • inetutils Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS 2:1.9.4-3ubuntu0.1+esm5
  • inetutils Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS 2:1.9.4-11ubuntu0.2+esm4
  • inetutils Ubuntu Pro 22.04 LTS 2:2.2-2ubuntu0.2+esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-28372

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • inetutils-telnet Alpine 3.24 2.8-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2026-28372

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Is CVE-2026-28372 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

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CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
8mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.42% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 36% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • lists.gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-inetutils/2026-02/msg00000.html referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.4 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

  • GNU inetutils

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-829 Inclusion of Functionality from Untrusted Control Sphere

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.