Reference page — cumulative record through Sunday, October 4, 2026 UTC. Reference pages update as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record.

CVE-2026-24061

CVE-2026-24061CRITICAL

GNU InetUtils

  AV  AC  PR  UI  S  C  I  A   CVSS    EPSS   %ile   KEV
   N   L   N   N  U  H  H  H    9.8   .9898   99.9   YES

AFFECTED
  Product    Versions  Fixed
  Inetutils  1.9.3 –   —

TIMELINE
  Jan 21  Reserved by mitre
  Jan 21  Published (CNA: mitre)
  Jan 26  Added to CISA KEV, remediation due 2026-02-16

CWE-88 · CNA: mitre · CVSS v3.1 · 14 references · NVD status: Analyzed · KEV due February 16, 2026

Description

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

Lifecycle

Complete event history — 3 events, chronological
Date	Event	Detail
January 21, 2026	Reserved	Reserved by mitre
January 21, 2026	Published	Published (CNA: mitre)
January 26, 2026	KEV ADDED	Added to CISA KEV, remediation due 2026-02-16

Affected

Affected products and packages — 1 row
Vendor	Product / Package	Ecosystem	Version introduced	Fixed
GNU	Inetutils	—	1.9.3	—

Weaknesses

CWE-88

References (14)

http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/01/22/1 [Mailing List]
https://codeberg.org/inetutils/inetutils/commit/ccba9f748aa8d50a38d7748e2e60362edd6a32cc [Patch]
https://codeberg.org/inetutils/inetutils/commit/fd702c02497b2f398e739e3119bed0b23dd7aa7b [Patch]
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2026/01/msg00025.html [Mailing List, Third Party Advisory]
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-inetutils/2026-01/msg00004.html [Mitigation, Vendor Advisory]
https://redteam.ae/blog/cve-2026-24061-inetutils-telnetd-root-bypass [Exploit, Third Party Advisory]
https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2026-24061 [US Government Resource]
https://www.gnu.org/software/inetutils/ [Product]
https://www.labs.greynoise.io/grimoire/2026-01-22-f-around-and-find-out-18-hours-of-unsolicited-houseguests/index.html [Exploit, Third Party Advisory]
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/01/20/2 [Mailing List]
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/01/20/2#:~:text=root@...a%3A~%20USER=' [Mailing List, Third Party Advisory]
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/01/20/8 [Mailing List]
https://www.vicarius.io/vsociety/posts/cve-2026-24061-detection-script-remote-authentication-bypass-in-gnu-inetutils-package [Third Party Advisory]
https://www.vicarius.io/vsociety/posts/cve-2026-24061-mitigation-script-remote-authentication-bypass-in-gnu-inetutils-package [Mitigation, Third Party Advisory]

Authoritative record: CVE-2026-24061 at cve.org

Vendors: gnu

Weaknesses: CWE-88

About this page

This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2026-24061 from the CVE Program record, NVD enrichment, the CISA KEV catalog, EPSS, and OSV advisories. The box score's numbers (CVSS, EPSS, KEV status) are current as of Sunday, October 4, 2026 UTC and are re-derived as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record. The authoritative source for this identifier is cve.org.