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OpenAdvisories
Medium · 4.5 CVE-2026-113719 BIT-virtualenv-2026-113719EUVD-2026-105300GHSA-hhxq-47xx-j5xx

virtualenv: Seed replacement does not contain metadata deletion paths

Published Oct 20, 2026 · Updated Oct 27, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

virtualenv is a tool for creating isolated virtual python environments. Prior to 21.14.9, PipInstall._uninstall_previous_version() accepts existing seed-package metadata and _uninstall_dist() joins entries from top_level.txt and RECORD to site-packages without checking containment. When a reused destination contains distribution metadata influenced by another account, relative traversal, absolute entries, or linked parents can cause app-data reseeding to delete files outside the environment or the environment root with the invoking user's permissions, provided that user has deletion rights over the named paths. The deletion occurs during environment creation before any later use of the environment. Fresh environments without existing package metadata and creation with --clear do not enter this cleanup path. This issue is fixed in version 21.14.9.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
pypa virtualenv < 21.14.9 —

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian 14 python-virtualenv No fix yet —
Debian 13 python-virtualenv No fix yet —
Debian 12 python-virtualenv No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 26.10 python-virtualenv No fix yet —
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS python-virtualenv No fix yet —
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS python-virtualenv No fix yet —
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS python-virtualenv No fix yet —
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS python-virtualenv No fix yet —
Show 3 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu Pro 24.04 LTS python-virtualenv No fix yet —
Ubuntu Pro 22.04 LTS python-virtualenv No fix yet —
Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS python-virtualenv No fix yet —

Azure Linux

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Azure Linux 3 python-virtualenv 20.36.1-10 —

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
PyPI virtualenv < 21.14.9 21.14.9 GHSA-hhxq-47xx-j5xx

References