CVE-2026-24061

Description

telnetd in GNU Inetutils through 2.7 allows remote authentication bypass via a "-f root" value for the USER environment variable.

Overview

State: PUBLISHED
Assigner (CNA): mitre
CVSS severity: CRITICAL
CVSS score: 9.8 / 10
CVSS vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Effective score: 9.8 / 10 CRITICAL source: CNA overview
CWE(s): CWE-88
Reserved: 2026-01-21
Published: 2026-01-21 06:42 UTC
Last updated: 2026-03-25 13:31 UTC
Source: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/main/cves/2026/24xxx/CVE-2026-24061.json
Linked Threat: CVE-2026-24061 — GNU InetUtils: GNU InetUtils Argument Injection Vulnerability

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities CISA KEV

CISA has confirmed in-the-wild exploitation of this CVE. Federal agencies must remediate by the due date below; private orgs should treat it as priority-1.

Vulnerability name: GNU InetUtils Argument Injection Vulnerability
Vendor / project: GNU
Product: InetUtils
Date added to KEV: 2026-01-26
Remediation due: 2026-02-16
Required action: Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.
Ransomware campaign use: Unknown
CISA notes: This vulnerability could affect an open-source component, third-party library, protocol, or proprietary implementation that could be used by different products. For more information, please see: https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/inetutils.git ; https://codeberg.org/inetutils/inetutils/commit/ccba9f748aa8d50a38d7748e2e60362edd6a32cc; https://codeberg.org/inetutils/inetutils/commit/fd702c02497b2f398e739e3119bed0b23dd7aa7b ; https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-24061
CISA listing: www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog

NVD triage scoring NVD CVE 2.0

Layer NVD adds on top of the CNA's CVE record — published / last-modified timestamps, exploitability / impact subscores, and the FIRST.org EPSS probability that this CVE will be exploited in the wild in the next 30 days.

NVD published: 2026-01-21 07:16:01 UTC
NVD last modified: 2026-02-11 15:40:42 UTC
NVD CVSS v3.1: 9.8 / 10 CRITICAL source: cve@mitre.org
NVD CVSS vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Exploitability subscore: 3.9 / 10
Impact subscore: 5.9 / 10
EPSS score: 0.9112 (probability of exploitation in next 30 days)
EPSS percentile: 99.66% vs all CVEs — higher = more likely to be exploited, as of 2026-05-24

European Union Vulnerability Database ENISA EUVD

ENISA's official EU repository for curated vulnerability intelligence. Carries a separate identifier (EUVD-YYYY-NNNN) and frequently exposes an earlier-published description + CVSS than NVD does.

EUVD ID: EUVD-2026-3688
Assigner: mitre
Published: Jan 21, 2026, 6:42:17 AM
Updated: Mar 25, 2026, 1:31:53 PM
EUVD base score (CVSS 3.1): 9.8 / 10
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EUVD-reported EPSS: 91.1200
Vendors: GNU
Products: Inetutils (1.9.3 ≤2.7)
Aliases: GHSA-pf97-p8ff-fj35

ENISA description: telnetd in GNU Inetutils through 2.7 allows remote authentication bypass via a "-f root" value for the USER environment variable.

EUVD references (8)

Affected products (1)

Vendor	Product	Versions	Platforms
GNU	Inetutils	`1.9.3` (affected)	—

Affected products — CPE 2.3 (2) NVD

NVD's normalized CPE 2.3 matchers, used by vendor tools (vulnerability scanners, asset managers) for automated detection. Compare with the CNA's free-text "Affected products" section above.

cpe:2.3:a:gnu:inetutils:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:11.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

Vendor references (8)

References embedded in the original CVE record by the assigning CNA.

MITRE references (8) cveawg.mitre.org

Pulled from MITRE's CVE Services API by the 🛰 Backfill from MITRE button.

Web references (4)

DuckDuckGo results ranked by threat-intel / vendor advisory domains. Generated by the 🔎 Find references (web) button above — same flow as the Remediations search.

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-24061 rapid7:www.cve.org
https://attackerkb.com/topics/CVE-2026-24061 rapid7:attackerkb.com
https://euvd.enisa.europa.eu/vulnerability/EUVD-2026-3688 rapid7:euvd.enisa.europa.eu
http://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/88.html rapid7:cwe.mitre.org

NVD-tagged references (13)

Reference list NVD curates from the CNA record, vendor advisories, and third-party reports. The tag chips below are NVD's analyst-assigned categories.

http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/01/22/1 af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 Mailing List
https://codeberg.org/inetutils/inetutils/commit/ccba9f748aa8d50a38d7748e2e60362edd6a32cc cve@mitre.org Patch
https://codeberg.org/inetutils/inetutils/commit/fd702c02497b2f398e739e3119bed0b23dd7aa7b cve@mitre.org Patch
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2026/01/msg00025.html af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 Mailing ListThird Party Advisory
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-inetutils/2026-01/msg00004.html cve@mitre.org MitigationVendor Advisory
https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2026-24061 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0 US Government Resource
https://www.gnu.org/software/inetutils/ cve@mitre.org Product
https://www.labs.greynoise.io/grimoire/2026-01-22-f-around-and-find-out-18-hours-of-unsolicited-houseguests/index.html 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0 ExploitThird Party Advisory
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/01/20/2 cve@mitre.org Mailing List
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/01/20/2#:~:text=root@...a%3A~%20USER=' 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0 Mailing ListThird Party Advisory
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/01/20/8 cve@mitre.org Mailing List
https://www.vicarius.io/vsociety/posts/cve-2026-24061-detection-script-remote-authentication-bypass-in-gnu-inetutils-package cve@mitre.org Third Party Advisory
https://www.vicarius.io/vsociety/posts/cve-2026-24061-mitigation-script-remote-authentication-bypass-in-gnu-inetutils-package cve@mitre.org MitigationThird Party Advisory

Indicators (2)

IOCs linked to the auto-promoted Threat row.

Type	Value	VirusTotal	Attached
cve	`CVE-2026-24061`	no local data	2026-05-14 02:58 UTC
cwe	`CWE-88`	no local data	2026-05-14 02:58 UTC

Remediations (9)

Remediations are stored against the linked Threat row; the list below is deduplicated across both pages.

Microsoft Patch Tuesday May 2026 - 120 Vulnerabilities Fixed, Including ...

web:cybersecuritynews.com

Microsoft's May 2026 Patch Tuesday lands with a heavy enterprise focus, fixing 120 vulnerabilities across Windows, Office, Azure, developer tools, and Microsoft 365 apps, including 29 remote code execution (RCE) flaws rated Critical.

2026-05-14 18:20 UTC
Nvd - Cve-2026-24061

web:nvd.nist.gov

Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

2026-05-14 18:20 UTC
Security Update Guide - Microsoft

web:portal.msrc.microsoft.com

The Security Update Guide provides information on the latest Microsoft security updates, helping users understand and address potential vulnerabilities effectively.

2026-05-14 18:20 UTC
Microsoft April 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes 167 flaws, 2 zero-days

web:www.bleepingcomputer.com

Today is Microsoft's April 2026 Patch Tuesday with security updates for 167 flaws, including 2 zero-day vulnerabilities.

2026-05-14 18:20 UTC
Patch Tuesday May 2026: Security Updates & CVE Analysis

web:zecurit.com

Get the complete breakdown of Microsoft's May 2026 Patch Tuesday. We analyze the latest security updates and all critical CVEs .

2026-05-14 18:20 UTC
Dangerous Fake Microsoft Windows Update Confirmed—Do Not Download

web:www.forbes.com

As security researchers warn about a dangerous Microsoft Windows update that isn't legitimate, users must pay close attention to what they are actually downloading.

2026-05-14 18:20 UTC
Microsoft May 2026 Patch Tuesday Fixes 130+ Vulnerabilities ... - LinkedIn

web:www.linkedin.com

Microsoft has released its May 2026 Patch Tuesday security updates, addressing more than 130 vulnerabilities across its software ecosystem, including Windows, Microsoft Office, SharePoint Server ...

2026-05-14 18:20 UTC
May 2026 Patch Tuesday: no zero-days but plenty to fix

web:www.malwarebytes.com

May's Patch Tuesday may not be the giant release many expected, but there are still plenty of important fixes that shouldn't be ignored.

2026-05-14 18:20 UTC
CISA Required Action

CISA KEV

Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable. Due date: 2026-02-16 Known ransomware campaign use: Unknown

2026-05-14 01:13 UTC

AI Forensic Analysis

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Raw JSON

The full cvelistV5 record. Download as CVE-2026-24061.json.

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