CVE-2026-61898

accountsservice: shell injection via attacker-controlled ~/.pam_environment in Ubuntu language helper scripts

State: Published
Severity: 7.8 High
Published: Aug 20, 2026
Updated: Aug 26, 2026
Reserved: Jul 11, 2026

Description

The Ubuntu-specific language helper scripts (save-to-pam-env, update-langlist) shipped with accountsservice before 23.13.9-8ubuntu7 treat the user-controlled LANGUAGE entry in ~/.pam_environment as trusted input. The value is interpolated unescaped into a GNU sed replacement expression, allowing an attacker to inject a sed 'e' flag and arbitrary shell commands that execute with the privileges of the AccountsService helper process (real UID 0) via the SetLanguage D-Bus method.

Scores

CVSS	Score	Vector	Source
3.1	7.8 High	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H	canonical

Weaknesses

CWE-78 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection')

Affected Products

Product	Versions
accountsserviceCanonical	22.07.5-2ubuntu1 to before 22.07.5-2ubuntu1.6Affected 23.13.9-2ubuntu6 to before 23.13.9-2ubuntu6.1Affected 23.13.9-8ubuntu5 to before 23.13.9-8ubuntu5.2Affected 23.13.9-8ubuntu6 to before 23.13.9-8ubuntu7Affected

References

Launchpad Bug #2157985issue-tracking
Ubuntu CVE Trackervendor-advisory

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