The rxvt-unicode package is vulnerable to a remote code execution, in the Perl background extension, when an attacker can control the data written to the user's terminal and certain options are set.

rxvt-unicode 9.22, rxvt 2.7.10, mrxvt 0.5.4, and Eterm 0.9.7 allow (potentially remote) code execution because of improper handling of certain escape sequences (ESC G Q). A response is terminated by a newline.

Rxvt 2.7.10 is vulnerable to a denial of service attack by passing the value -2^31 inside a terminal escape code, which results in a non-invertible integer that eventually leads to a segfault due to an out of bounds read.

rxvt 2.6.4 opens a terminal window on :0 if the DISPLAY environment variable is not set, which might allow local users to hijack X11 connections. NOTE: it was later reported that rxvt-unicode, mrxvt, aterm, multi-aterm, and wterm are also affected. NOTE: realistic attack scenarios require that the victim enters a command on the wrong machine.

rxvt-unicode before 6.3, on certain platforms that use openpty and non-Unix pty devices such as Linux and most BSD platforms, does not maintain the intended permissions of tty devices, which allows local users to gain read and write access to the devices.

The "screen dump" feature in rxvt 2.7.8 allows attackers to overwrite arbitrary files via a certain character escape sequence when it is echoed to a user's terminal, e.g. when the user views a file containing the malicious sequence.

The menuBar feature in rxvt 2.7.8 allows attackers to modify menu options and execute arbitrary commands via a certain character escape sequence that inserts the commands into the menu.

The rxvt terminal emulator 2.7.8 and earlier allows attackers to modify the window title via a certain character escape sequence and then insert it back to the command line in the user's terminal, e.g. when the user views a file containing the malicious sequence, which could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands.

Buffer overflow in tt_printf function of rxvt 2.6.2 allows local users to gain privileges via a long (1) -T or (2) -name argument.

xterm, Eterm, and rxvt allow an attacker to cause a denial of service by embedding certain escape characters which force the window to be resized.