Kitty, a cross‑platform GPU terminal, had a flaw that let an attacker who could write bytes to the terminal inject Python code that would run inside the kitty process with the user’s privileges. The vulnerability is a code‑injection flaw (CWE‑94) combined with missing authorization checks (CWE‑862). It allows the attacker to read, modify, or delete any data accessible to the local user and potentially launch further attacks against the system.

The affected product is Kitty (kovidgoyal:kitty). All releases prior to version 0.47.0 are vulnerable. The flaw can be triggered when kitty is used over a remote SSH session, when a file is displayed with cat, within email bodies rendered by less, in TUI issue bodies, or any context where external data can be written to the terminal.

The CVSS score of 7.8 indicates a high severity, but the EPSS score of less than 1 % shows a low probability of exploitation in the wild. The vulnerability is not listed in CISA’s KEV catalogue, and the attack requires the attacker to have the ability to write arbitrary bytes to a running kitty process, which is a local privilege scenario. Once triggered, it provides full user‑level code execution inside the running terminal with no user confirmation or remote‑control permission needed.