CVE-2026-113718
Description
A flaw was found in virtualenv. This vulnerability could lead to arbitrary code execution when a user sources a generated xonsh activation script. Under certain multibyte character encodings, improper quoting of non-ASCII directory paths or prompt strings allows quote boundaries to be broken. Consequently, an attacker who influences these path or prompt values can execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the user activating the environment.
Mitigation
--- CME Mitigation Guidance (2026-10-20) ---
Disclaimer: The following mitigation solutions are provided as a courtesy, pending the application of an official patch. This content was generated utilizing AI tools in conjunction with data from https://cmetaxonomy.org. Customers are advised to independently evaluate and test these temporary mitigations within their own infrastructure.
The highest-value action is to ensure virtualenv serializes prompt and path values in xonsh activation scripts as pure ASCII escape sequences rather than raw multibyte characters: upgrade to virtualenv 21.14.9 (or the fixed Uv/Rhoai/Odh Kserve Agent Rhel/Rhoai/Odh Kserve Controller Rhel/Rhoai/Odh Kserve Router Rhel/Rhoai/Odh Kserve Storage Initializer Rhel/Python Virtualenv/Rhoai/Odh Feature Server Rhel/Python3.11 Virtualenv/Python3.12 Virtualenv/Devspaces/Udi Rhel/Rhoai/Odh Ta Lmes Job Rhel/Cloudservices/Advisor Backend/Satellite/Iop Host Inventory Rhel/Satellite/Iop Yuptoo Rhel/Ansible Automation Platform 26/Lightspeed Chatbot Rhel/Satellite/Iop Advisor Backend Rhel/Ansible Automation Platform 26/Controller Rhel/Ansible Automation Platform 27/Controller Rhel/Ansible Ai Connect Service/Insights Host Inventory/Rhoai/Odh Training Rocm64 Torch28 Py312 Rhel/Cloudservices/Ros Backend/Redhat User Workloads/Mintmaker Renovate Image/Koku Daily/Nise Populator/Openshift Lightspeed/Lightspeed Service Api Rhel/Rhoai/Odh Trustyai Nemo Guardrails Server Rhel/Ansible Chatbot Stack/Rhoai/Odh Workbench Codeserver Datascience Cpu Py312 Rhel/Rhoai/Odh Workbench Jupyter Datascience Cpu Py312 Rhel/Rhoai/Odh Workbench Jupyter Pytorch Llmcompressor Cuda Py312 Rhel/Cloudservices/Rbac/Cloudservices/Yuptoo/Rhel Cla/Rlsapi Rhel/Rhai Early Access/Docling Serve Cuda Rhel/Digital Roadmap Backend/Ansible Automation Platform 27/Eda Controller Rhel/Automation Hub Container/Ansible Automation Platform 26/Eda Controller Rhel/Vulnerability Engine builds), which replace repr() with ascii() in XonshActivator.quote to serialize all non-ASCII characters as ASCII escape sequences, closing all 2 injection vectors (crafted prompt arguments, crafted destination directory paths). Until patched, this is a concern on Environments where virtualenv-generated xonsh activation scripts are sourced in shell sessions using legacy multibyte encodings, so Audit and restrict virtualenv prompt arguments and destination directory paths to trusted inputs, and enforce UTF-8 source decoding across xonsh sessions. These controls limit blast radius and contain exploitation, but they do not fix the underlying improper quoting defect — apply the upstream patch to fully remediate.
Highest-impact CME: CME-1315 Allowlist-Preferred Input Validation (Deny-by-Default Filtering) (high)
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 7 | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Local | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | High | N/A | N/A |
| Privileges Required | None | N/A | N/A |
| User Interaction | Required | N/A | N/A |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | N/A |
| Confidentiality | High | N/A | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | High | N/A | N/A |
| Availability Impact | High | N/A | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
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