High CVSS 7.5
CVE-2026-16445
NVD analysis in progress
A flaw was found in dracut. A remote attacker on the adjacent network can exploit this vulnerability by providing specially crafted DHCP options, such as a malicious root-path, next-server, or bootfile name, to a system using dracut's NetworkManager-based initrd network module. These options are improperly handled and written into a temporary shell script without proper escaping, leading to command injection. This allows the attacker to achieve root code execution within the initramfs during system boot.
What this means
- Exposure
- Exploitable from the adjacent network, without authentication and with no action from the victim. The attack does require particular conditions, which makes it less systematic.
- Impact
- An attacker can read sensitive data, modify or destroy data and take the service offline.
- Weakness
- Unfiltered input reaches the system shell, letting the attacker run their own commands on the server.
- Likelihood
- Its EPSS score stays low: nothing points to imminent exploitation, which is no reason to leave it unpatched.
What to doFold into the next patch cycle.
Read automatically from the CVSS vector, the weakness type (CWE) and the EPSS score. The technical description above remains the one published by NIST.