CVE-2025-14282
Publication date 12 February 2026
Last updated 18 February 2026
Ubuntu priority
Description
A flaw was found in Dropbear. When running in multi-user mode and authenticating users, the dropbear ssh server does the socket forwardings requested by the remote client as root, only switching to the logged-in user upon spawning a shell or performing some operations like reading the user's files. With the recent ability of also using unix domain sockets as the forwarding destination any user able to log in via ssh can connect to any unix socket with the root's credentials, bypassing both file system restrictions and any SO_PEERCRED / SO_PASSCRED checks performed by the peer.
Status
| Package | Ubuntu Release | Status |
|---|---|---|
| dropbear | 25.10 questing |
Needs evaluation
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
Severity score breakdown
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Base score |
5.4 · Medium
|
| Attack vector | Network |
| Attack complexity | Low |
| Privileges required | Low |
| User interaction | None |
| Scope | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | Low |
| Integrity impact | Low |
| Availability impact | None |
| Vector | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N |