MAD Bugs: "cat readme.txt" is not safe in iTerm2

2026-04-20

A vulnerability in iTerm2's SSH integration allows malicious `readme.txt` files to execute arbitrary commands locally. By printing specific escape sequences, an attacker can trick iTerm2 into impersonating its conductor script and sending a base64-encoded command back to the shell, even without a trusted remote session. A patch is available but still unstable.