Rapid7 Metasploit Framework versions before 5.0.85 suffers from an instance of CWE-78: OS Command Injection, wherein the libnotify plugin accepts untrusted user-supplied data via a remote computer's hostname or service name. An attacker can create a specially-crafted hostname or service name to be imported by Metasploit from a variety of sources and trigger a command injection on the operator's terminal. Note, only the Metasploit Framework and products that expose the plugin system is susceptible to this issue -- notably, this does not include Rapid7 Metasploit Pro. Also note, this vulnerability cannot be triggered through a normal scan operation -- the attacker would have to supply a file that is processed with the db_import command.
Severity
CVSS 3.1
7.8 high
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS
5.0% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days; higher than 92% of CVEs (scores of 2026-10-31)