Arbitrary Argument Injection Affecting inetutils-telnet package, versions <2.8-r0
Threat Intelligence
Snyk has reported that there have been attempts or successful attacks targeting this vulnerability.
The probability is the direct output of the EPSS model, and conveys an overall sense of the threat of exploitation in the wild. The percentile measures the EPSS probability relative to all known EPSS scores. Note: This data is updated daily, relying on the latest available EPSS model version. Check out the EPSS documentation for more details.
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Test your applications- Snyk IDSNYK-ALPINE324-INETUTILSTELNET-21043644
- published16 Oct 2026
- disclosed21 Jan 2026
Introduced: 21 Jan 2026
CVE-2026-24061 (opens in a new tab)How to fix?
Upgrade Alpine:3.24 inetutils-telnet to version 2.8-r0 or higher.
NVD Description
Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream inetutils-telnet package and not the inetutils-telnet package as distributed by Alpine.
See How to fix? for Alpine:3.24 relevant fixed versions and status.
telnetd in GNU Inetutils through 2.7 allows remote authentication bypass via a "-f root" value for the USER environment variable.
References
- https://www.gnu.org/software/inetutils/
- https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/01/20/2
- https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/01/20/8
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/01/22/1
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2026/01/msg00025.html
- https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2026-24061
- https://www.labs.greynoise.io/grimoire/2026-01-22-f-around-and-find-out-18-hours-of-unsolicited-houseguests/index.html
- https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/01/20/2#:
:text=root@...a%3A%20USER=' - https://codeberg.org/inetutils/inetutils/commit/ccba9f748aa8d50a38d7748e2e60362edd6a32cc
- https://codeberg.org/inetutils/inetutils/commit/fd702c02497b2f398e739e3119bed0b23dd7aa7b
- https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-inetutils/2026-01/msg00004.html
- https://www.vicarius.io/vsociety/posts/cve-2026-24061-detection-script-remote-authentication-bypass-in-gnu-inetutils-package
- https://www.vicarius.io/vsociety/posts/cve-2026-24061-mitigation-script-remote-authentication-bypass-in-gnu-inetutils-package
- https://redteam.ae/blog/cve-2026-24061-inetutils-telnetd-root-bypass
- https://github.com/ZeroDayEvil/CVE-2026-24061
- https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog
- https://github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei-templates/blob/main/code/cves/2026/CVE-2026-24061.yaml
- https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/52524