CVE-2005-2666: OpenBSD OpenSSH

Low severity, CVSS 1.2. EPSS: 1.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

SSH, as implemented in OpenSSH before 4.0 and possibly other implementations, stores hostnames, IP addresses, and keys in plaintext in the known_hosts file, which makes it easier for an attacker that has compromised an SSH user's account to generate a list of additional targets that are more likely to have the same password or key.

Affected products

• OpenBSD OpenSSH: version 3.0 only; version 3.0.1 only; version 3.0.1p1 only; version 3.0.2 only; version 3.0.2p1 only; version 3.0p1 only; …

Published 2005-08-23. Last modified 2026-06-16.