virtualenv: Deletion recovery can change a symlink target's mode (pypa virtualenv)

CVE-2026-113724
MEDIUM 4.5

At a glance

Source
NVD
EPSS
EPSS 0.20 % · percentile 10 ()
State
PUBLISHED
Published
Updated
Assigner
GitHub_M
NVD status
Awaiting Analysis

Description

virtualenv is a tool for creating isolated virtual python environments. Prior to 21.14.9, the safe_delete() deletion error handler responds to a failed removal by reading mode bits with os.lstat(path) and applying owner-write permission with os.chmod(path, ...), which follows a symlink. A planted link inside a read-only directory can therefore cause a victim-owned target outside the destination that is initially not writable by the invoking user to become broadly writable before the retry fails, provided that user owns the target and can change its mode. Another account can use the widened mode only if it can traverse the target's parent directories; root does not reach the demonstrated failure path, and the operation does not itself read the target. This issue is fixed in version 21.14.9.

Weaknesses (CWE)

  • CWE-59 — Improper Link Resolution Before File Access

References

Scores

VersionScoreVectorScored by
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 4.5CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:LGitHub_M
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 4.5CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:LNVD · security-advisories@github.com (Secondary)

Advisories

European references

Affected products

ProductVersions
pypa · virtualenvaffected < 21.14.9

Sources

SourceLicence
CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5)CVE Program Terms of Use
EPSS (FIRST.org)FIRST — attribution requested
ENISA EUVDENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged
NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feedsPublic domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD