There are 5 open security issues in bookworm.
3 important issues:
- CVE-2026-102925:
virtualenv is a tool for creating isolated virtual python environments. Prior to 21.7.13, the generated activate (bash and zsh) and activate.fish scripts place values already escaped by shlex.quote inside an additional quoted context. In the bash and zsh script, a crafted virtual environment path reaches __VIRTUAL_ENV__ when a relocated environment's recorded directory is absent; in the fish script, crafted Tcl or Tk library paths reach __TCL_LIBRARY__ or __TK_LIBRARY__. The surplus quotes can terminate the data-only quoted run and leave shell metacharacters parsed as commands when a user sources the activation script, allowing code execution with that user's privileges. This issue is fixed in version 21.7.13.
- CVE-2026-102930:
virtualenv is a tool for creating isolated virtual python environments. Prior to 21.7.12, download_wheel() accepts pip and setuptools seed wheels fetched for periodic updates or the --download option without checking their bytes against an authoritative digest equivalent to the embedded wheels' BUNDLE_SHA256 verification. A compromised index, stale mirror, or intercepted TLS connection can substitute a different wheel under the requested distribution, version, and filename, after which virtualenv caches and seeds the attacker-controlled wheel into subsequently created environments. The verification applies to the default PyPI path and is intentionally skipped when PIP_INDEX_URL, PIP_EXTRA_INDEX_URL, or PIP_INDEX configures a custom index that may legitimately publish rebuilt wheels. This issue is fixed in version 21.7.12.
- CVE-2026-102938:
virtualenv is a tool for creating isolated virtual python environments. Prior to 21.7.11, PyEnvCfg.write() writes prompt values verbatim to the line-oriented pyvenv.cfg format while PyEnvCfg._read_values() parses the file with str.splitlines() and accepts the last value for duplicate keys. An attacker who influences --prompt, VIRTUALENV_PROMPT, or configuration input can insert a recognized line boundary and additional keys, including home, causing consumers to use an attacker-selected base interpreter or corrupted environment metadata. The security impact requires prompt input from outside the operator's trust boundary; directly supplied prompt content primarily corrupts the operator's own environment. This issue is fixed in version 21.7.11.
2 issues postponed or untriaged:
- CVE-2024-53899:
(needs triaging)
virtualenv before 20.26.6 allows command injection through the activation scripts for a virtual environment. Magic template strings are not quoted correctly when replacing. NOTE: this is not the same as CVE-2024-9287.
- CVE-2026-22702:
(needs triaging)
virtualenv is a tool for creating isolated virtual python environments. Prior to version 20.36.1, TOCTOU (Time-of-Check-Time-of-Use) vulnerabilities in virtualenv allow local attackers to perform symlink-based attacks on directory creation operations. An attacker with local access can exploit a race condition between directory existence checks and creation to redirect virtualenv's app_data and lock file operations to attacker-controlled locations. This issue has been patched in version 20.36.1.
![[bug history graph]](https://qa.debian.org/data/bts/graphs/p/python-virtualenv.png){kind=link}