Privilege escalation in Https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/ Dropbear
CVE-2025-14282
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.
Published · last modified .
CVSS v3 metric
CVSS v3 base score 5.4 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N.
EPSS exploit prediction
EPSS: 0.004 (28.6th percentile), scored .
Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 29th percentile — 28.6% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.
EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.004 · newest: 0.004 · change: +0.000
Affected products
- Https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/ Dropbear — versions 2024.84
Weakness classification (CWE)
References
- access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-14282 (vdb-entry)
- bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi (issue-tracking)
- github.com/mkj/dropbear/pull/391
- github.com/mkj/dropbear/pull/394
- lists.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au/pipermail/dropbear/2025q4/002390.html
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2025-14282?
- CVE-2025-14282 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/ Dropbear, classified under Incorrect Privilege Assignment. CVSS score: 5.4/10. Published 2026-02-12.
- How severe is CVE-2025-14282?
- Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.4 out of 10.