CVE-2026-45255: Freebsd

High severity, CVSS 7.5. EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

When bsdinstall or bsdconfig are prompted to scan for nearby Wi-Fi networks, they build up a list of network names and use bsddialog(1) to prompt the user to select a network. This is implemented using a shell script, and the code which handled network names was not careful to prevent expansion by the shell. As a result, a suitably crafted network name can be used to execute commands via a subshell. The problem can be exploited to execute code as root on the system running bsdinstall or bsdconfig. The attacker would need to create an access point with a specially crafted name and be within range of a Wi-Fi scan. Note that bsdinstall and bsdconfig are vulnerable as soon as the user prompts them to scan for nearby networks; they do not need to actually select the malicious network.

Affected products

• Freebsd Freebsd: version 14.3 only; version 14.4 only; version 15.0 only

Published 2026-05-21. Last modified 2026-07-23.