CVE-2026-39849

May 5, 2026, 9:16 p.m.

8.7
High

Description

Pi-hole FTL is the core engine of the Pi-hole network-level advertisement and tracker blocker. In versions before 6.6.1, the `dns.interface` configuration field in Pi-hole FTL accepted newline characters without validation, allowing an attacker to inject arbitrary directives into the generated dnsmasq configuration file. On installations with no admin password set (the default for many deployments), the configuration API is fully accessible without credentials, allowing a network-adjacent attacker to inject the payload, enable the built-in DHCP server, and achieve arbitrary command execution on the host the next time any device on the network requests a DHCP lease. The injected value is persisted to /etc/pihole/pihole.toml and survives restarts. The strncpy in the code path limits the total interface field to 31 bytes, but payloads such as wlan0\ndhcp-script=/tmp/p fit within this constraint. The dnsmasq config validation introduced in FTL 6.6 only checks syntactic validity, so valid directives injected via newline pass validation successfully. This issue has been fixed in version 6.6.1.

Product(s) Impacted

Vendor Product Versions
Pi-hole
  • Pi-hole
  • 6.6.*, <6.6.1

Weaknesses

Common security weaknesses mapped to this vulnerability.

CWE-93
Improper Neutralization of CRLF Sequences ('CRLF Injection')
The product uses CRLF (carriage return line feeds) as a special element, e.g. to separate lines or records, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes CRLF sequences from inputs.

*CPE(s)

Affected systems and software identified for this CVE.

Type Vendor Product Version Update Edition Language Software Edition Target Software Target Hardware Other Information
a pi-hole pi-hole 6.6.* / / / / / / /
a pi-hole pi-hole <6.6.1 / / / / / / /

CVSS Score

8.7 / 10

CVSS Data - 4.0

  • Attack Vector: NETWORK
  • Attack Complexity: LOW
  • Attack Requirements: NONE
  • Privileges Required: LOW
  • User Interaction: NONE
  • Scope:
  • Confidentiality Impact: HIGH
  • Integrity Impact: HIGH
  • Availability Impact: HIGH
  • Exploit Maturity: NOT_DEFINED
  • CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/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

    View Vector String

Timeline

Published: May 5, 2026, 9:16 p.m.
Last Modified: May 5, 2026, 9:16 p.m.

Status : Received

CVE has been recently published to the CVE List and has been received by the NVD.

More info

*Disclaimer: Some vulnerabilities do not have an associated CPE. To enhance the data, we use AI to infer CPEs based on CVE details. This is an automated process and might not always be accurate.