A flaw was found in dracut. A remote attacker on the adjacent network can exploit this vulnerability by providing specially crafted DHCP options, such as a malicious root-path, next-server, or bootfile name, to a system using dracut's NetworkManager-based initrd network module. These options are improperly handled and written into a temporary shell script without proper escaping, leading to command injection. This allows the attacker to achieve root code execution within the initramfs during system boot.

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Fixes

Solution

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Workaround

Escape DHCP-derived values (root-path, next-server, dhcp-bootfile) with shell-safe quoting (for example printf '%q') before writing them to the generated dhcpopts file in modules.d/35network-manager/nm-run.sh. This approach is already used in dracut-057 and later, and is already present in the RHEL 8.10.z dracut-049-244.git20260529.el8_10 build.

History

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 13:15:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description A flaw was found in dracut. A remote attacker on the adjacent network can exploit this vulnerability by providing specially crafted DHCP options, such as a malicious root-path, next-server, or bootfile name, to a system using dracut's NetworkManager-based initrd network module. These options are improperly handled and written into a temporary shell script without proper escaping, leading to command injection. This allows the attacker to achieve root code execution within the initramfs during system boot.
Title Dracut: dracut: root code execution via dhcp options command injection in networkmanager initrd module
First Time appeared Redhat
Redhat enterprise Linux
Redhat hummingbird
Redhat openshift
Weaknesses CWE-78
CPEs cpe:/a:redhat:hummingbird:1
cpe:/a:redhat:openshift:4
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:10
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8::baseos
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:9
Vendors & Products Redhat
Redhat enterprise Linux
Redhat hummingbird
Redhat openshift
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 7.5, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H'}


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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: redhat

Published:

Updated: 2026-07-21T12:57:52.309Z

Reserved: 2026-07-21T08:23:53.560Z

Link: CVE-2026-16445

cve-icon Vulnrichment

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cve-icon NVD

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cve-icon Redhat

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cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

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Weaknesses