Lead · Vulnerabilities
Four ways in this week, and none of them needed your password
On some Linux builds, any password between 256 and 1,024 characters was the correct one, and attackers were trying it within hours.
CVE-2026-123158, which somebody has gleefully named SSHole, affects sshd in OpenSSH before 10.6p2 on Linux where musl libc is used without PAM: for some account configurations, the CVE text says any password between 256 and 1,024 characters succeeds, and SecurityWeek puts the window at 257 to 1,024. The bug is a misinterpretation of whether a string was ever meant to be a password hash, which is the most honest description of authentication anyone has written this year. Previdian reports exploitation attempts within hours of disclosure and root obtained on an Alpine honeypot, and Alpine has shipped fixed OpenSSH packages, with the small footnote that the service has to be restarted. It is always the restart.
It did not arrive alone. SonicWall patched seven SonicOS flaws including CVE-2026-19868, already exploited, which lets an attacker holding credentials for a different login method walk past SAML checks, SAML-enforced MFA included. watchTowr chained two Barracuda Email Security Gateway bugs into command execution as root with no login at all, patched on the Monday, published on the Thursday. IBM Aspera Faspex 5.0.0 through 5.0.19 carries CVE-2026-123218 at CVSS 9.8, an authorisation flaw that hands a user full administrative privileges, with no patch confirmed at the time of the posting.
Round the edges it is worse rather than better. QNAP says attackers are breaching NAS devices through the Plex2Shell chain and wants Plex Media Server updated now; D-Link has published mitigations for multiple unpatched flaws in DGS-3130 series switches with no fix date and, as one researcher noted, no CVE IDs at all. And if you are installing the fix for the actively exploited WordPress flaw, Picus Security's Umut Bayram found the update unpacks its files using the site's old, unpatched code, so the act of patching opens one last window. Chesterton put a fence in a field and asked why it was there; we have built an industry where the fence is load-bearing, undocumented, and briefly removed during maintenance.
Why it mattersFour live auth bypasses across SSH, VPN, mail gateway and file transfer means your perimeter inventory is today's priority, not this quarter's.
- 1Security newsOpenSSH Rushes Patches for ‘SSHole’ Authentication…
- 2Telegram🚨 OpenSSH flaw exploited within hours of disclosure…
- 3Security newsHackers Target OpenSSH SSHole Flaw Within Hours of…
- 4Telegram🚨 CVE-2026-123158 sshd in OpenSSH before 10.6p2 on…
- 5infosec.exchangeAlpine Linux fixes SSH flaw that can expose passwor…
- 6Security newsSonicWall Patches Exploited SonicOS Vulnerability T…