CVE-2026-85649 (CVSS 7.9)

Description

(Holloway) Chew, Kean Ho's Actualizer v1.2.0 and earlier contains a fail-open password validation vulnerability in the Alpha user and root user password loops of Shell/debian-minbase-install.sh. The installer invokes mkpasswd to generate yescrypt password hashes but does not check the command's return value and unconditionally accepts the result. If mkpasswd fails to generate a yescrypt hash, for example because an incompatible mkpasswd implementation or an environment without yescrypt support is used, the resulting password hash variable can be empty and the build proceeds. The resulting image can therefore contain empty password fields for the root and alpha accounts, potentially permitting passwordless authentication depending on the authentication configuration.

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CVSS v3.1 Score

7.9

HIGH

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N

EPSS — Exploit Prediction

0.0020

Probability of exploitation

0.09%

Percentile rank

EPSS estimates the probability that this vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. A higher score means more likely to be exploited.

Weakness Type (CWE)

CWE-252 CWE-252

CWE-636 CWE-636

References

Other References

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22169659 https://github.com/ChewKeanHo/software-actualizer/blob/v1.2.0/Shell/debian-minbase-install.sh#L788 https://github.com/ChewKeanHo/software-actualizer/commit/50a0932ac705635d9af62955c353e7c6df003a61.patch https://github.com/ChewKeanHo/software-actualizer/releases/tag/v1.2.1

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2026-85649? +

(Holloway) Chew, Kean Ho's Actualizer v1.2.0 and earlier contains a fail-open password validation vulnerability in the Alpha user and root user password loops of Shell/debian-minbase-install.sh. The installer invokes mkpasswd to generate yescrypt password hashes but does not check the command's return value and unconditionally accepts the result. If mkpasswd fails to generate a yescrypt hash, for example because an incompatible mkpasswd implementation or an environment without yescrypt support is used, the resulting password hash variable can be empty and the build proceeds. The resulting image can therefore contain empty password fields for the root and alpha accounts, potentially permitting passwordless authentication depending on the authentication configuration. It has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.9 (HIGH).

How severe is CVE-2026-85649? +

CVE-2026-85649 has a CVSS v3.1 score of 7.9 out of 10, rated HIGH. This is a high-severity vulnerability that should be prioritized for patching. The EPSS score is 0.0020, placing it in the 0th percentile for exploitation probability.

How do I check if I'm vulnerable to CVE-2026-85649? +

You can use Secably's free Website Scanner to check your website for known vulnerabilities. For infrastructure scanning, use the Port Scanner to identify exposed services that may be affected. Check the vendor advisories linked above for specific patch and version information.

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