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accountsservice CVE-2026-61898

| EUVDEUVD-2026-63380 HIGH
OS Command Injection (CWE-78)
2026-08-20 canonical GHSA-vqj6-342m-9cvg
Command Injection Ubuntu Red Hat Canonical Suse Accountsservice
7.8
CVSS 3.1 · Vendor: canonical
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Severity by source

Vendor (canonical) PRIMARY
7.8 HIGH
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
vuln.today AI
7.8 HIGH

Local vector because exploitation requires existing shell access to write ~/.pam_environment and invoke D-Bus; PR:L because any standard user account suffices; full CIA impact from achieving real UID 0 execution.

3.1 AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
4.0 AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
SUSE
HIGH
qualitative
Red Hat
7.8 HIGH
qualitative

Primary rating from Vendor (canonical).

CVSS VectorVendor: canonical

Attack Vector
Local
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

Lifecycle Timeline

3
Patch available
Aug 20, 2026 - 15:16 EUVD
Analysis Generated
Aug 20, 2026 - 15:06 vuln.today
CVE Published
Aug 20, 2026 - 14:32 cve.org
HIGH 7.8

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.

AnalysisAI

Privilege escalation in Ubuntu's accountsservice package allows a local low-privileged user to execute arbitrary shell commands as root (real UID 0) by injecting a GNU sed 'e' flag payload into their ~/.pam_environment LANGUAGE entry, which is then processed unsanitized by Ubuntu-specific helper scripts (save-to-pam-env, update-langlist) when the SetLanguage D-Bus method is invoked. All Ubuntu accountsservice packages before version 23.13.9-8ubuntu7 are affected; this is a Ubuntu-specific packaging defect, not an upstream accountsservice issue. …

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Attack ChainAIDerived

Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata

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Vulnerability AssessmentAI

Exploitation Exploitation requires a local user account with write access to their own ~/.pam_environment file (standard on Ubuntu) and the ability to invoke the SetLanguage method on the org.freedesktop.Accounts D-Bus interface (permitted for any authenticated local user session by default on Ubuntu desktop installations). … Additional conditions and limiting factors are described in the full assessment.
Risk Assessment The CVSS 7.8 score (AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) is well-calibrated to this vulnerability. … Full risk analysis with EPSS, KEV, and SSVC signal comparison available after sign-in.
Exploit Scenario Full exploit scenario with step-by-step reproduction available after sign-in.
Remediation Upgrade accountsservice to version 23.13.9-8ubuntu7 or later using Ubuntu's package manager (sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade accountsservice). … Detailed patch versions, workarounds, and compensating controls in full report.
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Recommended ActionAI

Within 24 hours: Identify and catalog all Ubuntu systems with accountsservice versions prior to 23.13.9-8ubuntu7 using package management tools, and immediately implement compensating controls. …

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Same weakness CWE-78 – OS Command Injection

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Vendor StatusVendor

SUSE

Severity: Important
Product Status
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 Not-Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Desktop Applications 15 SP7 Not-Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP7 Not-Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.0 Not-Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.1 Not-Affected

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CVE-2026-61898 vulnerability details – vuln.today
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