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NVD / CVE Program· CNA Secur0

CVE-2026-95834: Use after free in the kitty drag and drop protocol when a drag source item is aborted mid-transfer

Noroxi assessment

Priority: Monitor (action score 18/100)

  • The sources we track (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei, GitHub) show no public exploit code or exploitation in the wild.
  • Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days: 0.12% (FIRST EPSS).
  • Someone with local access to the system can trigger it. No account or password is required. No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.
  • Fixed version: Kovid Goyal kitty 0.49.0.

Low priority for now. Upgrade to Kovid Goyal kitty 0.49.0 or later.

Generated automatically from the record's data: CVSS (NVD and CNA), CISA KEV and SSVC, FIRST EPSS, exploit sources, fixed versions. How we calculate it

Primary sources: NVD · CVE.org · FIRST EPSS

Use After Free in the drag source path of the drag and drop protocol in kitty from 0.47.0 before 0.49.0 allows a program writing to the terminal to cause the terminal to read from and write to freed heap memory, because drag_remote_file_data() in kitty/dnd.c holds a DragRemoteItem pointer into an array it does not own, calls toplevel_data_for_drag() or subdir_data_for_drag(), and then continues to use that pointer. Those helpers, and add_payload() and populate_dir_entries() which they call, report errors through the abrt() macro, which expands to cancel_drag() followed by a plain return, and cancel_drag() calls drag_free_offer(), which frees the array the pointer refers to. The helpers return void, so the caller receives no indication that the teardown happened, and proceeds to call all_children_complete() on the freed pointer, which dereferences it, and then to write through it. That dereference is guarded by a local flag that is set when the request carries no payload and announces no further data, which is the same condition that selects the finalisation block of add_payload(), so the error paths in that block reach it: a create that fails because an entry of the same name already exists, because the client may declare two entries with one name and the create operations use O_CREAT with O_EXCL and symlinkat(), a mkdirat() failure other than EEXIST, and the directory entry allocation paths. Both branches reach it. In the top level branch the caller's pointer is never cleared, so clearing the owning structure's own pointers during teardown does not help. In the sub directory branch subdir_data_for_drag() sets the caller's pointer to NULL on entry and assigns it only after its own last error path, so its own aborts leave the caller with NULL and are stopped by a null check, but it then calls add_payload() with that pointer set, and an abort there leaves the caller holding a freed child node inside the item tree, which drag_free_offer() frees by recursion. This results in undefined behaviour in the terminal process, reachable from the byte stream of any program running in the window.

MediumCVSS 4.6 · v4.0—No exploit Fix available
Published
Sep 25, 2026
Updated
Sep 29, 2026
EPSS
0.1% · 2th percentile

Report tools

JSON

Action score

18

Monitor

Low priority for now.

CVSS
18 / 40 · 4.6 / 10
CISA KEV
0 / 30 · Not listed
EPSS
0 / 30 · 0.1%

CISA SSVC decision

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial

Vulnrichment: CISA's decision-tree inputs.

CNA vs NVD score

NVD
—
CNA · Secur0
4.6
NVD has not scored this yet; the score shown is the CNA’s.

CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:N/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

The score given by the assigning authority versus NVD’s independent score. A gap means the severity is contested.

Get told when this record changes

  • Not in KEV: no record of exploitation in the wild
  • No public exploit code on record
  • A fix has been released

If any of these changes, we'll tell you in the daily email digest.

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When you'll hear from us

  • when it enters CISA KEV
  • when exploit code appears or is weaponized
  • when the record is updated (including a fixed version)
  • when EPSS rises 20 points in a week

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Noroxi analysis

What does it mean in your environment?

The assessment above is generated automatically from the record's data; it doesn't know your environment. Our team verifies on your systems whether this vulnerability is actually exploitable and which mitigation is enough.

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Affected systems

Is your version affected?

Pick the product and type the version you run. It's compared with this record's version ranges in your browser; the version isn't sent anywhere.

—

Versions reported by the vendor

Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (Secur0). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.

  • Kovid Goyal kitty

    • 0.47.0 and later · before 0.49.0affected · semver

Package-level exposure

OSV and GitHub Advisory data: ecosystem, package and range. SBOM matching uses this table.

EcosystemPackageAffected rangeFix
Debian:12kittyfrom 0—

Same product

kovid goyal: all records

Other highest-scoring records for the same primary product.

  • CVE-2026-95832Reflected unknown field names in the kitty colour control escape code allow command execution in the user's shell
    37Monitor
  • CVE-2026-80431Out-of-bounds write in the kitty text sizing protocol allows termination of the terminal process
    27Monitor
  • CVE-2026-80432Missing authorization in the kitty drag and drop protocol allows a client to obtain dragged file contents without a drop
    24Monitor

Published before and after this one in the same product

  • ← EarlierCVE-2026-80430Sep 25, 2026 · Improper link resolution in the kitty drag and drop protocol allows a client to create files outside the staging directory
    18Monitor
  • Later →CVE-2026-95835Sep 25, 2026 · Missing ownership check on the shared memory object named by the kitty askpass escape code
    22Monitor

Remediation

Which version to upgrade to

Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.

Product / packageFixed versionSource
Kovid Goyal kitty0.49.0Vendor (CNA)

Exploit status

No known public exploit

No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.

Research context

For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.

Timeline

From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.

No dated events beyond publication.

EPSS, last 120 days

FIRST EPSS daily score; only changes of 0.01 or more are recorded (step chart).

Patch and commit links

Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.

Credits

All researchers

Finders, reporters and analysts named in the CNA record. Click a name for that researcher’s other records.

Variant candidates

Same product, same weakness class, within 18 months. If the patch missed the root cause, the sibling bug is here.

No nightly-computed relations.

Chain candidates

An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.

—

Bug bounty scope

No known public program.

Source: bounty-targets-data (public HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Intigriti, YesWeHack listings).

Technical details

Attack conditions

  • Someone with local access to the system can trigger it.
  • No account or password is required.
  • No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.

If successful

Confidentiality
Integrity
Availability
Attack vector
Local
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
A
Scope
X

Weakness class (CWE)

CWE-416 · Use After Free

CVSS vector

CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:N/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

nvd-secondary

Root cause

After a memory region is freed, another reference pointing to it is still used. By then, the same region may have been allocated for different data.

The bug in code

The whole CWE-416 class

A representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.

Vulnerable

c
free(dev->buf);/* ... another thread is still running ... */process(dev->buf);

Fixed

c
lock(&dev->lock);free(dev->buf);dev->buf = NULL;unlock(&dev->lock);

Attack context

MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.

MITRE has no CAPEC/ATT&CK mapping for this CWE.

Change log

  1. Fix✗ → ✓

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References

Show all references (2 more)

Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.

All records