Terminal2Shell is a design-level vulnerability in terminal emulators. When a terminal is launched, it immediately spawns a shell process and connects it directly to the user’s keyboard. From there, the attacker can issue arbitrary commands with the full privileges of the logged-in user.

Researchers have confirmed that the shell will execute any command typed into it, including commands that delete files, install software, and modify system configuration. In some cases, the shell has been observed executing commands the user typed themselves.

Product Vector Status
macOS Terminal.app, iTerm2, Ghostty, Warp VULNERABLE
Linux gnome-terminal, Konsole, xterm, Ctrl+Alt+F2 VULNERABLE
Windows cmd.exe, PowerShell, Windows Terminal, WSL VULNERABLE
FreeBSD / OpenBSD Literally the default experience VULNERABLE
DEC VT100 (1978) Physical serial cable VULNERABLE
Your router SSH, telnet, the little console port on the back VULNERABLE
VS Code Ctrl+` (one keystroke!) VULNERABLE
Microsoft Paint None known Not affected
  • SavvyWolf@pawb.social
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    14 hours ago

    Just tested my system, and it looks like I’m vulnerable. I’m uninstalling bash to see if th

  • nfms@lemmy.ml
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    15 hours ago

    A # prompt indicates the attacker has obtained root. Disconnect from the network, then from society.

    😁

  • data1701d (He/Him)@startrek.website
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    17 hours ago

    And it was discovered with an LLM by some “vibe coder” (please hold your nose while pronouncing) with curly blonde hair, empty blue eyes, a business degree, and horrible political opinions. In addition, he talks your ear off about the inevitable glorious agentic AI future and how nobody needs RAM and that all resources in the world should be used towards bringing this future to past, with his response to most arguments against him being something along the lines of “resistance is futile”.

    • benagain@lemmy.ml
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      13 hours ago

      Lol yeah. It should have been obvious sooner given how thick it lays the joke on - but I had already entered the “groaning and preparing to power everything down” phase before reading the website.

  • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
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    22 hours ago

    I’m ashamed it took me THAT long. Only upon opening my yakuake it slowly dawned on me. I really feel dumb now…

  • Carl [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 day ago

    Several case studies exist of AI agents autonomously executing the Terminal2Shell exploit in order to alter files and run programs on accessed systems. The only solution is a trillion more dollars in investment.

        • Guiorgy@lemmy.ml
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          14 hours ago

          What are you talking about? I don’t know what you use to browse Lemmy, but I use Voyager and it shows clearly that this was posted on the programmerhumor lemmy community/world/instance 😂

            • Infrapink@thebrainbin.orgOP
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              2 hours ago

              OK, let’s all calm down and stop insulting each other.

              @commanderred@chaos.social is using Mastodon account, so they probably won’t even see the magazine, as Mastodon doesn’t really support them.

              Lemmy is a federated social media software; basically, Lemmy is to Reddit as Mastodon is to Twitter. @Guiorgy@lemmy.ml should know that the Fediverse is bigger than just Lemmy (I use mbin, which is also federated Reddit but different to Lemmy).

              Because Mastodon, Lemmy, and mbin all use ActivityPub, we can all talk to each other despite our accounts being on different websites running different software.

              • Guiorgy@lemmy.ml
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                35 minutes ago

                For what it’s worth I’ve been on Lemmy for barely over a month, so I’m still pretty new to this. I was not at all expecting to be talking to people from Mastodon or mbin here 🤔

                My understanding was that federation allowed many independent Lemmy instances to interact, but nit that it even included other platforms. Looks like I’ll have to do some reading into this whole thing.

                Thanks for trying to explain!