5.4

CVE-2025-14282: Dropbear: privilege escalation via unix domain socket forwardings

Deferred
AliasesALPINE-CVE-2025-14282UBUNTU-CVE-2025-14282DEBIAN-CVE-2025-14282
Published 12-02-2026Last modified 18-02-2026

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2025-14282 is a medium (CVSS 5.4) Incorrect Privilege Assignment vulnerability in https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/ dropbear. EPSS estimates a 0.40% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 34.8% of scored vulnerabilities.

Priority
Routine

Not severe (CVSS 5.4, network access); no exploitation reported by the 5 checked sources

Source freshness unavailable

How is this decided?
CVSS score
5.4/10
010
Medium · v3.1 (CVE.org)
EPSS score
0.40%
0%100%
Low · +0.03 pp in 30 days
KEVNot listedNot listed by any tracked catalog.
RansomwareNot flaggedNo ransomware use recorded.
Public exploits0No public exploits recorded

Timeline

  1. 12-02-2026
    PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
  2. 18-02-2026
    Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

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.

CVSS metrics

5 scores · 5 sources · 1 version

EPSS trend

Probability

0.40%

Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days

Percentile

35%

Versus all other CVEs

30-day change

Increase +0.03 pp

From 0.38% on 04-10-2026

04-10-202603-11-2026

Known exploited

Compare KEV catalogs
CISA KEV

Not in the CISA KEV catalog.

ENISA CNW

Not in the ENISA CNW catalog.

CIRCL

Not in the CIRCL catalog.

Public exploits

0 found

No public exploits indexed.

Weaknesses

CWE · root cause

Affected systems

Version check

Known conditions: network-reachable, low-privilege account, no user interaction (CVSS vector). Other conditions: not stated in public data.

Alpine1 product
  • dropbear< 2025.89-r0
Debian1 product
  • dropbear< 2025.89-1 | < 2025.89-1~deb13u1
Https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/1 product
  • dropbear≥ 2024.84, < 2025.88
Ubuntu1 product
  • dropbearAll versions (No fix recorded)

4 vendors · 4 products

References

11 links
Show all 11 references