CVE-2026-61898: accountsservice: shell injection via attacker-controlled ~/.pam_environment in Ubuntu language helper scripts
Canonical · accountsservice
Fixed in 23.13.9-8ubuntu7 · Affected: Canonical accountsservice before 23.13.9-8ubuntu7 · Exploitation: unlikely (under 1%)
Not in CyberSIXT coverage yet: no article names this CVE. This page shows the public record.
Higher than 8% of scored CVEs
DescriptionCVE.org
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.
Affected products1
From the CVE record. A product or version that is not listed is unknown, not unaffected.
- Canonical · accountsservicefrom 22.07.5-2ubuntu1 before 22.07.5-2ubuntu1.6; from 23.13.9-2ubuntu6 before 23.13.9-2ubuntu6.1; from 23.13.9-8ubuntu5 before 23.13.9-8ubuntu5.2; from 23.13.9-8ubuntu6 before 23.13.9-8ubuntu7
On the Atlas
Every published CVE is on the CyberSIXT Atlas, grouped by weakness, vendor and month.
- Exploitation
- Unlikely (under 1%). EPSS under 1%, or no score yet.
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Public check
- No public nuclei template
- Vendor
- Canonical
- Published
- August 2026
CoverageNo articles yet
No CyberSIXT article names CVE-2026-61898 yet, so there is no coverage timeline, action brief or change log for it. Everything on this page comes from the public CVE record, CISA KEV, EPSS and the nuclei template index. Search the archive or see the CVEs in the news.