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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.6

CVE-2026-43941 json

Unvalidated shell.openExternal in electerm allows arbitrary protocol execution via terminal link click

published 2026-05-08 6 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-fwf6-j56g-m97c , EUVD-2026-28513

cvss
9.6
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 33%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

electerm is an open-sourced terminal/ssh/sftp/telnet/serialport/RDP/VNC/Spice/ftp client. In versions 3.8.15 and prior, Electerm's terminal hyperlink handler passes any URL clicked in the terminal directly to shell.openExternal without any protocol validation. An attacker who controls terminal output (e.g., via a malicious SSH server, compromised remote host, or malicious plugin rendering terminal content) can thus achieve arbitrary code execution or local file access on the victim's machine, requiring only that the victim clicks a displayed link. At time of publication, there are no publicly available patches.

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
6 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.39% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 33% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 9.6 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
GitHub 3.1 8.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
npm electerm
<=3.8.15
no fix listed

Affected products

  • electerm electerm

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-88 Improper Neutralization of Argument Delimiters in a Command
  • CWE-601 URL Redirection to Untrusted Site

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.