Heap-based buffer overflow in the env_opt_add function in telnet.c for various BSD-based Telnet clients allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via responses that contain a large number of characters that require escaping, which consumers more memory than allocated.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2005-0468 is rated High Exploit Risk (84.3/100): CVSS High severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 58.54%, 98th percentile). Core evidence: 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). EPSS rose +6.07% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Mandatory action: Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.
Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.
| EDB-ID | Source | Kind | Published | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25303 | exploit_db | edb | 2005-03-28 | Exploit-DB ↗ |
EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).
| # | Date | Old EPSS score | New EPSS score | Delta (New - Old) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2025-08-07 | 52.46% | 58.54% | +6.07% |
| 2 | 2025-03-30 | 57.68% | 52.46% | -5.22% |
| 3 | 2025-03-29 | — | 57.68% | — |
Full EPSS history (9 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7.5 | 2.0 | HIGH |
|
10.0 | 6.4 | [email protected] |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
debian
|
not yet assigned | CVE-2005-0468 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (krb5), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. | https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2005-0468 |
redhat
|
high | — | https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2005-0468 |
suse
|
medium | — | https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2005-0468/ |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2005-0468 medium priority: Ubuntu including 3 source packages (krb4, krb5, netkit-telnet), 12 status rows across 4 suites (dapper, edgy, feisty, upstream): released 5, needs-triage 3, not-affected 3, DNE 1. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2005-0468 |
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 is not vulnerable to this issue as it contains a backported patch.