Bug 2541404 (CVE-2026-95832)

Summary: CVE-2026-95832 kitty: Reflected unknown field names in the kitty colour control escape code allow command execution in the user's shell
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: high Docs Contact:
Priority: high    
Version: unspecifiedCC: jcantril, rhel-process-autobot, rojacob, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Doc Text:
A flaw was found in kitty. This vulnerability allows an application writing output to the terminal to execute arbitrary commands in the user's shell. The issue occurs because the color control escape code handler echoes unrecognized field names back into the terminal's input stream without adequate sanitization. Consequently, the reflected data is processed by the shell as user input, allowing unauthorized command execution with the privileges of the active user.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
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Bug Depends On: 2542547, 2542548, 2542533, 2542534, 2542535, 2542536, 2542537    
Bug Blocks:    

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-25 13:10:42 UTC 
Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component in the colour control escape code handler in kitty from 0.47.3 before 0.49.0 allows a program writing to the terminal to execute an arbitrary command in the user's shell, because color_control() in kitty/window.py answers a query for an unrecognised field name by placing that field name into the reply, and write_escape_code_to_child() in kitty/screen.c then writes the reply to the pseudoterminal master, where it is not distinguishable from input typed by the user, without neutralising it for the shell that reads it. The payload is reduced to printable ASCII before the field name is echoed, which is the restriction introduced in 0.47.3 as the fix for CVE-2026-54057, and the record and field separators ; and = are consumed as delimiters, but every other printable character survives, which is sufficient to compose a shell command. A newline is available from handle_remote_ssh() in kitty/window.py, which writes the bytes yielded by get_ssh_data() in kittens/ssh/utils.py, the first of which begin with a newline, to the pseudoterminal master before any credential carried in the request is checked. The reply is framed as an OSC sequence carrying the escape code number, the field name, and the literal value ?. This results in execution of an attacker-chosen command with the privileges of the user running the terminal.