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.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/ | dropbear | 2024.84 – < 2025.88 | 2025.88 |
Fixed in Linux distributions
Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.
Debian
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 14 | dropbear | 2025.89-1 | — |
| Debian 13 | dropbear | 2025.89-1~deb13u1 | DSA-6086-1 |
Ubuntu
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 26.04 LTS | dropbear | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 25.10 | dropbear | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 24.04 LTS | dropbear | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 22.04 LTS | dropbear | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 16.04 LTS | dropbear | No fix yet | — |
Show 2 more (older releases, extended support, other products)Fewer releases
| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS | dropbear | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS | dropbear | No fix yet | — |
Alpine
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpine v3.24 | dropbear | 2025.89-r0 | — |
Advisories 2
- WID-SEC-2025-2866 Dropbear SSH: Schwachstelle ermöglicht Erlangen von Administratorrechten BSI CERT-Bund (WID) · Dec 21, 2025
- DSA-6086-1 dropbear - security update Debian Security (DSA / DLA) · Dec 19, 2025