🛡️ CVE-2026-42851 on Debian — kitty

⚪ Unknown ✅ No Known Exploit OSV
N/A
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

Kitty is a cross-platform GPU based terminal. In versions prior to 0.47.0, a program able to write bytes to a kitty terminal — a remote SSH peer, a downloaded file viewed with cat, a log line, an email body rendered in less, an issue body in a TUI, etc. — can cause kitty to execute attacker-supplied Python inside the running kitty process, with the user's full privileges. There is no approval prompt, no remote-control permission requirement, no shell-integration interaction, no clipboard touch, and no editor interaction. Version 0.47.0 fixes the issue.

Distribution advisory

This page covers CVE-2026-42851 as tracked by Debian, for the package kitty. The fix is available in version 0.47.0-1; earlier versions remain affected.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached with local access to the system, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs no privileges on the target. A user must be tricked into taking some action. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality high, integrity high, availability high.

Weakness class

DEBIAN-CVE-2026-42851 is classified as CWE-94: Code Injection. Input is incorporated into code that the runtime evaluates, so an attacker can have their own code executed.

Affected software

DEBIAN-CVE-2026-42851 is recorded against 1 package.

  • kitty (fixed in 0.47.0-1)

Timeline and source

Published on 12 June 2026 and last revised on 9 August 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from OSV.

References

security-tracker.debian.org (Advisory)

CVE-2026-42851 on other distributions

Each distribution ships its own build and its own fixed version. Pick the one you run:

Details

Severity Unknown
CVSS Score N/A
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CWE N/A
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source OSV
Published 2026-06-12
Updated 2026-08-12
Modified 2026-08-09
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
kitty — 0.47.0-1

Similar Threats

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DEBIAN-CVE-2026-42851 is rated CVSS 7.8 High. BotEraser scans your installation against known CVE records and tells you whether this vulnerability applies to the versions you actually run.

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