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Backport venv activation scripts escaping improvements from virtualenv #160782

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@hroncok

Bug report

In Fedora, we have recently triaged some CVE that were publicly displosed for pypa/virtualenv. I decided to check if anything is also reproducible via plain venv and it is.

CVE-2026-113723, CVE-2026-113725, CVE-2026-113726, CVE-2026-113732, CVE-2026-113715, CVE-2026-113716, CVE-2026-113721

Neither is considered a security vulnerability in CPython:

Vulnerabilities must not depend on malicious control of Python’s launch conditions, including (but not limited to) command line arguments, environment variables, or modifications to files on the target system. We assume that, at the time Python is executed, the environment is as intended by the legitimate user, and any malicious variation from this cannot be mitigated by Python itself.

However, those issues are still nice to fix.

To reproduce:

#!/bin/bash
set -u
for PY in python3.14 python3.15 python3.16; do
  echo "################## $PY ##################"
  WORK=$(mktemp -d)
  cd "$WORK"

  echo "=== 1. bash/zsh PS1 redraw injection ==="
  echo "    cf. virtualenv CVE-2026-113723, CVE-2026-113725, CVE-2026-113726"
  "$PY" -m venv --without-pip --prompt "x\$(touch $WORK/PWNED_BASH)y" "$WORK/venv1" >/dev/null 2>&1
  bash -c "source $WORK/venv1/bin/activate; echo \"\${PS1@P}\"" >/dev/null 2>&1
  test -e "$WORK/PWNED_BASH" && echo "BASH: VULNERABLE" || echo "BASH: not reproduced"

  "$PY" -m venv --without-pip --prompt "x\$(touch $WORK/PWNED_ZSH)y" "$WORK/venv1z" >/dev/null 2>&1
  zsh -c "setopt PROMPT_SUBST; source $WORK/venv1z/bin/activate; print -P \"\$PS1\"" >/dev/null 2>&1
  test -e "$WORK/PWNED_ZSH" && echo "ZSH: VULNERABLE" || echo "ZSH: not reproduced"

  echo "=== 2. fish quote-escaping gap ==="
  echo "    cf. virtualenv CVE-2026-113732"
  mkdir -p "$WORK/workdir2"
  "$PY" -m venv --without-pip --prompt "x\\'\$(touch PWNED)'\\'" "$WORK/venv2" >/dev/null 2>&1
  (cd "$WORK/workdir2" && fish --no-config -c "source $WORK/venv2/bin/activate.fish" >/dev/null 2>&1)
  test -e "$WORK/workdir2/PWNED" && echo "FISH: VULNERABLE" || echo "FISH: not reproduced"

  echo "=== 3. pyvenv.cfg injection via command= ==="
  echo "    cf. virtualenv CVE-2026-113715"
  "$PY" -m venv --without-pip --prompt $'legit\ninclude-system-site-packages = true\n#' "$WORK/venv3" >/dev/null 2>&1
  RESULT=$("$WORK/venv3/bin/$PY" -c "import site; print(site.ENABLE_USER_SITE)" 2>&1)
  echo "ENABLE_USER_SITE=$RESULT"

  echo "=== 4. site-packages redirected via symlinked intermediate dir ==="
  echo "    cf. virtualenv CVE-2026-113716"
  mkdir -p "$WORK/envdir4" "$WORK/outside4"
  ln -s "$WORK/outside4" "$WORK/envdir4/lib"
  "$PY" -m venv --without-pip "$WORK/envdir4" >/dev/null 2>&1
  test -d "$WORK/outside4/$PY/site-packages" && echo "SYMLINK-DIR: VULNERABLE" || echo "SYMLINK-DIR: not reproduced"

  echo "=== 5. file overwrite through pre-existing symlink ==="
  echo "    cf. virtualenv CVE-2026-113721"
  mkdir -p "$WORK/envdir5/bin"
  echo SENSITIVE > "$WORK/outside5"
  ln -s "$WORK/outside5" "$WORK/envdir5/bin/activate"
  "$PY" -m venv --without-pip "$WORK/envdir5" >/dev/null 2>&1
  grep -q "virtualenv\|venv" "$WORK/outside5" 2>/dev/null && echo "SYMLINK-FILE: VULNERABLE" || echo "SYMLINK-FILE: not reproduced"

  rm -rf "$WORK"
  echo
done

virtualenv fixes:

CPython versions tested on:

3.16, 3.15, 3.14

Operating systems tested on:

Linux

Linked PRs

Activity

  1. added
    stdlibStandard Library Python modules in the Lib/ directory
    topic-venvRelated to the venv module
    on Oct 28, 2026
  2. NekoAsakura commented on Oct 29, 2026

    @NekoAsakura
    Member

    1. bash/zsh PS1 redraw injection is also reported in #160732.

  3. added a commit that references this issue on Oct 30, 2026
  4. added 2 commits that reference this issue on Oct 30, 2026
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    stdlibStandard Library Python modules in the Lib/ directorytopic-venvRelated to the venv moduletype-bugAn unexpected behavior, bug, or error

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