# CVE-2025-14282: Dropbear: privilege escalation via unix domain socket forwardings

> Authenticated users can escalate privileges to root by connecting to Unix domain sockets via SSH forwarding in multi-user mode.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.4 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 12 Feb 2026
- **Updated:** 18 Feb 2026
- **Also known as:** ALPINE-CVE-2025-14282, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-14282, DSA-6086-1, GHSA-xqcm-jrw9-wq72, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-14282

## What is CVE-2025-14282?

CVE-2025-14282 is a medium-severity vulnerability in https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/ dropbear, published on 12 Feb 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

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.

Weakness: CWE-266 (Incorrect Privilege Assignment)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-14282?


## How do I fix CVE-2025-14282?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-14282 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-14282 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-14282 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-14282 is a medium-severity vulnerability in https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/ dropbear, published on 12 Feb 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-14282 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/ dropbear. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-14282/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-14282/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-14282
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-14282
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-14282

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-14282/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.