CVE-2026-121400
Description
A flaw was found in FreeRDP. A malicious or compromised Remote Desktop Gateway (RD Gateway) server can cause a Denial of Service (DoS) by sending an incomplete control packet during an active connection. This causes the client to enter an unbounded read loop, consuming excessive central processing unit (CPU) resources and causing the application to become unresponsive.
Statement
This vulnerability is evaluated as Moderate impact because successful exploitation requires connecting to an untrusted or adversarial Remote Desktop Gateway, and the resulting impact is confined to a client-side denial of service rather than code execution or privilege escalation. In typical Red Hat Enterprise Linux environments, FreeRDP is utilized on demand as an interactive remote desktop client and is not exposed as an unauthenticated listening daemon. Because triggering the condition requires initiating an explicit connection through a rogue gateway proxy, standard client operations connecting directly to trusted endpoints remain unaffected.
Mitigation
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 6.5 | N/A | 6.5 |
| Attack Vector | Network | N/A | Network |
| Attack Complexity | Low | N/A | Low |
| Privileges Required | None | N/A | None |
| User Interaction | Required | N/A | Required |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | None | N/A | None |
| Integrity Impact | None | N/A | None |
| Availability Impact | High | N/A | High |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Amplification
An infinite loop will cause unexpected consumption of resources, such as CPU cycles or memory. The software's operation may slow down, or cause a long time to respond.
Frequently Asked Questions
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