Is CVE-2026-72842 exploited in the wild?

No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-72842 being exploited in the wild.

How severe is CVE-2026-72842?

Critical severity, with a CVSS score of 9.9, published 13 August 2026.

Is there a fix for CVE-2026-72842?

No fixed version is recorded yet. Check the vendor's advisory in the references below. If you run it, Junglewise drafts a mitigation that fits your setup and applies it once you approve, with senior security engineers behind it.

How is CVE-2026-72842 attacked?

It is attacked over the network.

Am I affected by CVE-2026-72842?

Check whether you run OpenWrt Luci-App-Lxc at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.

CVE-2026-72842: OpenWrt luci-app-lxc ACL bypass in container management

CVE-2026-72842 · Severity: critical · CVSS 9.9 · Published 2026-08-13

luci-app-lxc is a web interface for managing LXC containers on OpenWrt routers. A low-privileged user who should have no container management access can bypass authorization checks to directly access backend container APIs, modify container configuration, and exploit path traversal to write malicious scripts executed as root on the host system, leading to complete system compromise.

Vendors: OpenWrt.

Quick answers

Is CVE-2026-72842 exploited in the wild?: No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-72842 being exploited in the wild.
How severe is CVE-2026-72842?: Critical severity, with a CVSS score of 9.9, published 13 August 2026.
Which products and versions are affected?: OpenWrt Luci-App-Lxc 25.12.2.
Is there a fix for CVE-2026-72842?: No fixed version is recorded yet. Check the vendor's advisory in the references below. If you run it, Junglewise drafts a mitigation that fits your setup and applies it once you approve, with senior security engineers behind it.
How is CVE-2026-72842 attacked?: It is attacked over the network.
Am I affected by CVE-2026-72842?: Check whether you run OpenWrt Luci-App-Lxc at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.

Technical details

The vulnerability is a frontend/backend authorization mismatch in luci-app-lxc where backend container management routes (admin/services/lxc/*) only check authentication but fail to enforce the same ACL restrictions applied to the frontend page (admin/services/lxccm/overview). A low-privileged authenticated user can directly invoke these backend routes to read and modify container configuration. The vulnerability is compounded by insufficient validation of the `lxc_name` parameter in path construction; attackers can use `/.%2E` (URL-decoded to `..`) to perform path traversal and escape the container directory sandbox. By targeting `/tmp/lib/config` combined with `lxc.hook.start-host`, an attacker can execute arbitrary commands as root on the OpenWrt host. No patch is currently available for affected version 25.12.2.

Affected products

OpenWrt luci-app-lxc 25.12.2

Timeline

2026-07-21: disclosed
2026-08-13: advisory

References

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