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.

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.

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 "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.

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.

rxvt, when compiled with the PRINT_PIPE option in various Linux operating systems including Linux Slackware 3.0 and RedHat 2.1, allows local users to gain root privileges by specifying a malicious program using the -print-pipe command line parameter.