CVE-2026-28372 Privilege escalation in inetutils
Local attackers can escalate privileges by exploiting telnetd's handling of systemd credentials via a specific file and environment variable.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-28372?
CVE-2026-28372 is a high-severity vulnerability in GNU inetutils, published on 27 Feb 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
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.
Weakness: CWE-829
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-28372?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Gnu Inetutils.
How do I fix CVE-2026-28372?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2026-28372 being exploited?
It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2026-28372 exists.
Public exploit code: 3 proofs of concept on GitHub.
Other vulnerabilities in GNU inetutils
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2026-28372, DSA-6144-1, GHSA-j682-47rx-fxrp, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-28372.