Screen 5.0.0 when it runs with setuid-root privileges does not drop privileges while operating on a user supplied path. This allows unprivileged users to create files in arbitrary locations with `root` ownership, the invoking user's (real) group ownership and file mode 0644. All data written to the Screen PTY will be logged into this file, allowing to escalate to root privileges

The remote Fedora 41 host has a package installed that is affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the FEDORA-2025-653690f2f7 advisory.

    Update default config options for build.

    ----

    New upstream release 5.0.1

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote Fedora 42 host has a package installed that is affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the FEDORA-2025-f055a0d751 advisory.

    Update default config options for build.

    ----

    New upstream release 5.0.1

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The version of FreeBSD installed on the remote host is prior to tested version. It is, therefore, affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the 4abd86c1-366d-11f0-9c0c-000c29ffbb6c advisory.

    The screen project reports:
    Multiple security issues in screen.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the FreeBSD security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

There are packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities referenced in the following CVEs:

  - Screen 5.0.0 when it runs with setuid-root privileges does not drop privileges while operating on a user
    supplied path. This allows unprivileged users to create files in arbitrary locations with `root`
    ownership, the invoking user's (real) group ownership and file mode 0644. All data written to the Screen
    PTY will be logged into this file, allowing to escalate to root privileges (CVE-2025-23395)

  - For a short time they PTY is set to mode 666, allowing any user on the system to connect to the screen
    session. (CVE-2025-46802)

  - The default mode of pseudo terminals (PTYs) allocated by Screen was changed from 0620 to 0622, thereby
    allowing anyone to write to any Screen PTYs in the system. (CVE-2025-46803)

  - A minor information leak when running Screen with setuid-root privileges allows unprivileged users to
    deduce information about a path that would otherwise not be available. Affected are older Screen versions,
    as well as version 5.0.0. (CVE-2025-46804)

  - Screen version 5.0.0 and older version 4 releases have a TOCTOU race potentially allowing to send SIGHUP,
    SIGCONT to privileged processes when installed setuid-root. (CVE-2025-46805)

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
242408	Fedora 41 : screen (2025-653690f2f7)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	high
242406	Fedora 42 : screen (2025-f055a0d751)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	high
237154	FreeBSD : screen -- multiple vulnerabilities (4abd86c1-366d-11f0-9c0c-000c29ffbb6c)	Nessus	FreeBSD Local Security Checks	critical
425967	Alpine: multiple screen packages: security update to 5.0.1-r0	Tenable Cloud Security	Alpine Linux Local Security Checks	high
425967	Alpine: multiple screen packages: security update to 5.0.1-r0	Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security	Alpine Linux Local Security Checks	high

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2025-23395

high

Tenable Plugins

high

high

critical

high

high