Published Jul 21, 2026Sources checked Nov 12, 2026
7.5HIGHCVSS out of 10
What this means
Review the available evidence
CVE-2026-16445 and is rated High severity with a CVSS score of 7.5. It is not in the current CISA KEV record we collected. That does not prove exploitation has not occurred.
CISA KEVNot listedBased on the latest collected catalog
EPSS3.2%Estimated 30-day exploitation probability
Ransomware useNot markedCISA KEV ransomware field
Threat actors0Source-linked actor relationships
Overview
What is CVE-2026-16445?
A flaw was found in dracut. A remote attacker on the adjacent network can exploit this vulnerability by providing specially crafted DHCP options, such as a malicious root-path, next-server, or bootfile name, to a system using dracut's NetworkManager-based initrd network module.
These options are improperly handled and written into a temporary shell script without proper escaping, leading to command injection. This allows the attacker to achieve root code execution within the initramfs during system boot.