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

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: 2026-02-12 Last update: 2026-04-15 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Deferred，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2025-14282 is rated Low Risk (21.8/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.01%). Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2025-14282

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 2026-02-13 — 0.01% —

Full EPSS history (1 record total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-14282

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.4 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 2.8 2.5 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2025-14282

OS Trackers for CVE-2025-14282

vendor priority summary link
alpine — CVE-2025-14282: 1 source package rows (dropbear); 1 state rows across 1 repos (edge-main); fixed 1, open 0. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2025-14282
debian unimportant CVE-2025-14282 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (dropbear), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2025-14282
ubuntu medium CVE-2025-14282 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (dropbear), 8 status rows across 8 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, plucky, questing, upstream, xenial): needs-triage 6, ignored 1, released 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-14282

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-14282

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
No affected products in dataset.

References for CVE-2025-14282

cvelogic Threat Intelligence