Threat Intelligence Database

A critical vulnerability (CVE-2026-4631) exists in the Cockpit web-based server administration tool used in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The flaw involves unauthenticated remote code execution due to SSH command-line argument injection. This allows an attacker to execute arbitrary commands remotely without authentication. Red Hat has released patches addressing this issue by improving hostname handling on the command line. The vulnerability affects multiple Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.6 and 10.0 Extended Update Support and standard releases across various architectures. No known exploits are reported in the wild at this time.

Cockpit's remote login feature passes user-supplied hostnames and usernames from the web interface to the SSH client without validation or sanitization. An attacker with network access to the Cockpit web service can craft a single HTTP request to the login endpoint that injects malicious SSH options or shell commands, achieving code execution on the Cockpit host without valid credentials. The injection occurs during the authentication flow before any credential verification takes place, meaning no login is required to exploit the vulnerability.