CVE-2026-61898: CWE-78: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection') in Canonical accountsservice
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.
CVE-2026-61898: CWE-78: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection') in Canonical accountsservice
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.
CVSS v3.1
Score 7.8high
Affected software
Weaknesses
Technical Details
- Data Version
- 5.2
- Assigner Short Name
- canonical
- Date Reserved
- 2026-07-11T18:43:51.251Z
- Cvss Version
- 3.1
- State
- PUBLISHED
- Remediation Level
- null
Threat ID: 6a871151acd9273b49bdeee6
Added to database: 08/20/2026, 14:38:09 UTC
Last updated: 08/20/2026, 14:38:09 UTC
Views: 1
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