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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.8

CVE-2022-4170 json

The rxvt-unicode package is vulnerable to a remote code execution, in the Perl background extension, when an attacker can control the data…

published 2022-12-09 3 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2022-51531

cvss
9.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.2%
EPSS 2.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 82%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The rxvt-unicode package is vulnerable to a remote code execution, in the Perl background extension, when an attacker can control the data written to the user's terminal and certain options are set.

Patch / fix

  • rxvt-unicode Debian 14, Debian 13 9.31-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2022-4170

  • rxvt-unicode openSUSE Tumbleweed 9.31-1.1
  • rxvt-unicode Package Hub 15 SP5, Package Hub 15 SP4, openSUSE Leap 15.5 +1 more 9.31-bp155.3.3.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:13323-1openSUSE-SU-2023:0306-1

  • rxvt-unicode Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +4 more 9.31-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2022-4170

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2022-4170 updated

rxvt-unicode: remote code execution via background OSC

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
total
Assessed
18 mo ago

Exploit prediction

2.22% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 82% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CNA 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

  • n/a rxvt-unicode

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-74 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.