CVE-2026-43941

CRITICAL

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

Title source: cna
STIX 2.1

Description

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.

References (1)

Core 1
Core References

Scores

CVSS v3 9.6
EPSS 0.0002
EPSS Percentile 6.2%
Attack Vector NETWORK
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

CISA SSVC

Vulnrichment
Exploitation none
Automatable no
Technical Impact total

Details

CWE
CWE-601 CWE-88
Status published
Products (3)
electerm/electerm <= 3.8.15
electerm_project/electerm < 3.8.15
npm/electerm 0 - 3.8.15npm
Published May 08, 2026
Tracked Since May 08, 2026