CVE-2026-43941Unvalidated shell.openExternal in electerm allows arbitrary protocol execution via terminal link click
- 9.6CriticalCVSS base score
- 0.39%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 66% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
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.
Timeline
ID reserved
By GitHub_M
- 4 days later
· 4 days later
Published
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub_MCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | Critical9.6 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Analyzed | 3.1 | Critical9.6 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.39% · top 66% of all CVEs (13 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: total
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Critical 9.6.
Affected products
Affected packages
From reviewed advisories of the GitHub Advisory Database.
- npmelectermGHSA-fwf6-j56g-m97c (opens in a new tab)
References
References1
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2026-28513 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisory GHSA-fwf6-j56g-m97c (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2026-43941)Record last updated .