CVE-2022-39028
Description
telnetd in GNU Inetutils through 2.3, MIT krb5-appl through 1.0.3, and derivative works has a NULL pointer dereference via 0xff 0xf7 or 0xff 0xf8. In a typical installation, the telnetd application would crash but the telnet service would remain available through inetd. However, if the telnetd application has many crashes within a short time interval, the telnet service would become unavailable after inetd logs a "telnet/tcp server failing (looping), service terminated" error. NOTE: MIT krb5-appl is not supported upstream but is shipped by a few Linux distributions. The affected code was removed from the supported MIT Kerberos 5 (aka krb5) product many years ago, at version 1.8.
CVSS Details
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Threat Intelligence
No active exploitation signals — not in CISA KEV and no EPSS score yet.
Weaknesses 1
Affected Products 4
| Vendor | Product | Version | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| gnu | inetutils | * | ≤2.3 |
| mit | kerberos_5 | * | ≤1.0.3 |
| debian | debian_linux | 10.0 | any |
| netkit-telnet_project | netkit-telnet | * | ≤0.17 |
References 4
- git.hadrons.org https://git.hadrons.org/cgit/debian/pkgs/inetutils.git/commit/?id=113da8021710d871c7dd72d2a4d5615d42d64289
- lists.debian.org https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2022/11/msg00033.html
- lists.gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-inetutils/2022-08/msg00002.html
- pierrekim.github.io https://pierrekim.github.io/blog/2022-08-24-2-byte-dos-freebsd-netbsd-telnetd-netkit-telnetd-inetutils-telnetd-kerberos-telnetd.html
Remediation
- git.hadrons.org https://git.hadrons.org/cgit/debian/pkgs/inetutils.git/commit/?id=113da8021710d871c7dd72d2a4d5615d42d64289
- pierrekim.github.io https://pierrekim.github.io/blog/2022-08-24-2-byte-dos-freebsd-netbsd-telnetd-netkit-telnetd-inetutils-telnetd-kerberos-telnetd.html