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Vulnerability record · CVE-2022-39028 · published 30 August 2022

CVE-2022-39028: Gnu inetutils null pointer dereference vulnerability

Gnu · Inetutils

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.

7.5 CVSS 3.1 High EPSS 2.1% · top 19.0% CWE-476 · NULL pointer dereference
7.5CVSS 3.1 base score
2.1%EPSS exploitation probability, 30 days
NoNot in CISA KEV
4Affected product versions listed by NVD
8References, 2 tagged exploit
17 Jun 2026Last modified by NVD

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:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

4 vulnerable configurations from NVD's CPE data, grouped by vendor and product.

References

LinkTags
https://git.hadrons.org/cgit/debian/pkgs/inetutils.git/commit/?id=113da8021710d871c7dd72d2a4d5615d42d64289 Mailing ListPatchVendor Advisory
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2022/11/msg00033.html Mailing ListThird Party Advisory
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-inetutils/2022-08/msg00002.html Mailing ListVendor Advisory
https://pierrekim.github.io/blog/2022-08-24-2-byte-dos-freebsd-netbsd-telnetd-netkit-telnetd-inetutils-telnetd-kerberos- ExploitPatchThird Party Advisory
https://git.hadrons.org/cgit/debian/pkgs/inetutils.git/commit/?id=113da8021710d871c7dd72d2a4d5615d42d64289 Mailing ListPatchVendor Advisory
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2022/11/msg00033.html Mailing ListThird Party Advisory
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-inetutils/2022-08/msg00002.html Mailing ListVendor Advisory
https://pierrekim.github.io/blog/2022-08-24-2-byte-dos-freebsd-netbsd-telnetd-netkit-telnetd-inetutils-telnetd-kerberos- ExploitPatchThird Party Advisory

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Source: NIST National Vulnerability Database (record CVE-2022-39028), CISA KEV, FIRST EPSS (scores of 2026-09-26). This page is refreshed as NVD updates the record.