Vulnerability in GNU Inetutils

CVE-2026-28372

telnetd in GNU inetutils through 2.7 allows privilege escalation that can be exploited by abusing systemd service credentials support added to the login(1) implementation of util-linux in release 2.40. This is related to client control over the CREDENTIALS_DIRECTORY environment variable, and requires an unprivileged local user to create a login.noauth file.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.4 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (9.8th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 10th percentile — 9.8% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-28372: held from 0.004 to 0.002.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.004 · newest: 0.002 · change: -0.002

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-28372?
CVE-2026-28372 is a high-severity vulnerability in GNU Inetutils, classified under Inclusion of Functionality from Untrusted Control Sphere. CVSS score: 7.4/10. Published 2026-02-27.
How severe is CVE-2026-28372?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.4 out of 10.
Is CVE-2026-28372 known to be exploited?
3 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.