[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]
Message-ID: <1dc55356fb2f927bb5152bb43619e139@risingedge.co.za>
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2026 02:22:34 +0200
From: Justin Swartz <justin.swartz@...ingedge.co.za>
To: Eddie Chapman <eddie@...k.net>
Cc: oss-security@...ts.openwall.com, Solar Designer <solar@...nwall.com>,
kf503bla@...k.com, bug-inetutils@....org, ron.benyizhak@...ebreach.com,
simon@...efsson.org, auerswal@...x-ag.uni-kl.de
Subject: Re: Telnetd Vulnerability Report
On 2026-02-25 01:18, Eddie Chapman wrote:
> On 24/02/2026 20:33, Solar Designer wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 24, 2026 at 05:05:58AM -0500, kf503bla@...k.com wrote:
>>> Who uses telnet anyway? It's deprecated. Everyone uses ssh for any
>>> kind of remote access.
>>
>> Indeed. Yet:
>>
>> Quite many people surely do still use a telnet client to access
>> various
>> older/smaller devices
>
> Yes. I would hazard a guess that the largest cohort of devices running
> a telnet server are enterprise switches, gateways & routers. So many
> times over the years I've been surprised to find a switch I'm
> configuring has a telnet as well as the obligatory http(s) server
> available for the admin to login via.
>
> Albeit to a lesser extent these days, and more likely BusyBox telnetd
> than InetUtils. But switches are one of the most likely pieces of kit
> to be forgotten about and left running for 10+ years in a closet
> without a firmware update. There are a LOT of old switches running out
> there.
There're also serial port concentrators, programmable automation
controllers, remote telemetry units, protocol gateways, data
aggregators, and PXI/LXI instrumentation out there that run some of
telnet daemon - and you can be sure that it's not always busybox's
telnetd implementation.
Powered by blists - more mailing lists
Please check out the
Open Source Software Security Wiki, which is counterpart to this
mailing list.
Confused about mailing lists and their use?
Read about mailing lists on Wikipedia
and check out these
guidelines on proper formatting of your messages.
