⚠ Actively exploited
Added to CISA KEV on 2026-01-26. Federal agencies required to patch by 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..

CVE-2026-24061

CWE-8817 documents14 sources
Severity
9.8CRITICAL
EPSS
88.0%
top 0.52%
CISA KEV
KEV
Added 2026-01-26
Due 2026-02-16
Exploit
PoC available
Public exploit / PoC exists
Affected products
2
GNU InetutilsDebian Debian Linux
Timeline
PublishedJan 21
KEV addedJan 26
KEV dueFeb 16
Latest updateFeb 18
CISA 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.

Description

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

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HExploitability: 3.9 | Impact: 5.9

Affected Packages3 packages

▶Debianinetutils< 2:2.0-1+deb11u3+3
▶CVEListV5gnu/inetutils1.9.3 — 2.7
▶NVDgnu/inetutils1.9.3 — 2.7

Also affects: Debian Linux 11.0

Patches

Patch: codeberg.org ↗Patch: codeberg.org ↗

🔴Vulnerability Details

4
GHSA
GHSA-pf97-p8ff-fj35: telnetd in GNU Inetutils through 2↗2026-01-21
▶
OSV
CVE-2026-24061: telnetd in GNU Inetutils through 2↗2026-01-21
▶
CVEList
CVE-2026-24061: telnetd in GNU Inetutils through 2↗2026-01-21
▶
VulnCheck
GNU InetUtils Argument Injection Vulnerability↗2026
▶

💥Exploits & PoCs

2
Metasploit
GNU Inetutils Telnet Authentication Bypass Exploit CVE-2026-24061↗
▶
Nuclei
GNU Inetutils telnetd - Authentication Bypass
▶

🔍Detection Rules

3
Suricata
ET WEB_SERVER GNU InetUtils Authentication Bypass via USER Environment Variable (CVE-2026-24061)↗2026-01-23
▶
Elastic
Telnet Authentication Bypass via User Environment Variable↗
▶
Elastic
Potential Telnet Authentication Bypass (CVE-2026-24061)↗
▶

📋Vendor Advisories

4
Ubuntu
Inetutils vulnerability↗2026-02-18
▶
Ubuntu
Inetutils vulnerability↗2026-02-02
▶
CISA
GNU InetUtils Argument Injection Vulnerability↗2026-01-26
▶
Debian
CVE-2026-24061: inetutils - telnetd in GNU Inetutils through 2.7 allows remote authentication bypass via a "...↗2026
▶

🕵️Threat Intelligence

3
Bleepingcomputer
Nearly 800,000 Telnet servers exposed to remote attacks↗2026-01-26
▶
Bleepingcomputer
Hackers exploit critical telnetd auth bypass flaw to get root↗2026-01-23
▶
Wiz
CVE-2026-24061 Impact, Exploitability, and Mitigation Steps | Wiz↗
▶