CVE-2026-61898

HIGHPre-NVD 7.87.8—
EchelonGraph scoreMEDIUM confidence

Score 7.8 from GitHub Security Advisory (severity: HIGH) published 2026-08-20. A secondary CVSS source baseline 7.8; sources differ by 0.0.

Triggered by: GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
Sources: epss, ghsa, secondary
Trending — 4 sources updated this week
7.8EG
EchelonGraph verdictPlan a fixSerious severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet.
  • High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
CISA-KEV: Not listedEPSS PROB: 0.2%CVSS: 7.8Exploit: None knownExposed services: Not assessed

A fix is available — apply it.

The Ubuntu-specific language helper scripts (save-to-pam-env, update-langlist) shipped with accountsservice before 23.13.9-8ubuntu7 treat the user-controlled LANGUAGE entry in ~/.pam_environment as trusted input. The value is interpolated unescaped into a GNU sed replacement expression, allowing an attacker to inject a sed 'e' flag and arbitrary shell commands that execute with the privileges of the AccountsService helper process (real UID 0) via the SetLanguage D-Bus method.

CVSS v3
7.8
EG Score
7.8HIGHmedium confidence
EG Risk
35
EG Risk 35/100CISA SSVC

EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score: it fuses intrinsic severity with real-world exploitation and automatability so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner. Distinct from the 0–10 EG Score (severity).

How it’s computed
Severity78% × 45%
Exploitation0% × 40%
Automatability0% × 15%
CISA SSVC: Track at low or medium mission impact; Track* at high (mission-essential systems).
Action: A fix is available. Apply it within your standard update timelines.
EPSS PROB
0.2%
EPSS %ILE
7th
KEV
Not listed

CISA SSVCTrack at low or medium mission impact; Track* at high (mission-essential systems).

A fix is available. Apply it within your standard update timelines.

Exploitation none (CISA Vulnrichment) · Automatable no (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact total (CISA Vulnrichment). Mission impact is CISA's Mission & Well-being decision point, and only you can judge it: high means the affected system is essential to your organisation's mission, or its compromise could cause irreversible harm to people. CISA's decision table

Published

August 20, 2026

Last Modified

August 28, 2026

Advisory Details (2)

Auto-updated Aug 20, 2026
🔬 Proof of concept available. Patch available. Sources: ubuntu.
ubuntu Patch Available

CVE-2026-61898 | Ubuntu

https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2026-61898
generic🟡 PoC Available

Bug #2157985 “SetLanguage leads to local privilege escalation an...” : Bugs : accountsservice package : Ubuntu

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/accountsservice/+bug/2157985

Vendor Advisories for CVE-2026-61898(1)

These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.

Patch Availability(2)

Vendor / EcosystemFix (by version range) / PatchReleasedSource
ubuntulibaccountsservice0 (23.13.9-8ubuntu5.2) @ resolute2026-10-05ubuntu
ubuntulibaccountsservice0 (0.6.45-1ubuntu1.3+esm2) @ bionic2026-10-05ubuntu

Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.

Weakness Classification(1)

MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.

All Vendor Advisories

(2)

Every vendor that published an advisory referencing this CVE — pulled from our cve_vendor_advisories aggregation. Click any row for the vendor's original advisory page.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 35× in last 7d / 149× in last 30d)

Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.

Showing the most recent 100 of 239 total refreshes for this CVE.

  1. 2026-10-05 05:01 UTCEG score recompute
  2. 2026-10-05 05:01 UTCVendor advisory
  3. 2026-10-05 05:01 UTCGHSA enrichment
  4. 2026-10-04 23:22 UTCEPSS rescore
  5. 2026-10-04 16:14 UTCVendor advisory
  6. 2026-10-04 16:14 UTCGHSA enrichment
  7. 2026-10-04 04:30 UTCVendor advisory
  8. 2026-10-04 04:30 UTCGHSA enrichment
  9. 2026-10-03 16:48 UTCEG score recompute
  10. 2026-10-03 16:48 UTCVendor advisory
  11. 2026-10-03 16:48 UTCGHSA enrichment
  12. 2026-10-03 14:26 UTCEPSS rescore
  13. 2026-10-02 21:00 UTCEG score recompute
  14. 2026-10-02 21:00 UTCVendor advisory
  15. 2026-10-02 21:00 UTCGHSA enrichment
  16. 2026-10-02 17:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  17. 2026-10-02 09:12 UTCVendor advisory
  18. 2026-10-02 09:12 UTCGHSA enrichment
  19. 2026-10-01 21:30 UTCEG score recompute
  20. 2026-10-01 21:30 UTCVendor advisory
  21. 2026-10-01 21:30 UTCGHSA enrichment
  22. 2026-10-01 19:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  23. 2026-10-01 08:12 UTCVendor advisory
  24. 2026-10-01 08:12 UTCGHSA enrichment
  25. 2026-09-30 20:32 UTCEG score recompute
Show 75 more
  1. 2026-09-30 20:32 UTCVendor advisory
  2. 2026-09-30 20:32 UTCGHSA enrichment
  3. 2026-09-30 15:03 UTCEPSS rescore
  4. 2026-09-30 08:21 UTCEG score recompute
  5. 2026-09-30 08:21 UTCVendor advisory
  6. 2026-09-30 08:21 UTCGHSA enrichment
  7. 2026-09-28 21:39 UTCEG score recompute
  8. 2026-09-28 21:39 UTCVendor advisory
  9. 2026-09-28 21:39 UTCGHSA enrichment
  10. 2026-09-28 13:51 UTCEPSS rescore
  11. 2026-09-28 03:50 UTCVendor advisory
  12. 2026-09-28 03:50 UTCGHSA enrichment
  13. 2026-09-27 16:01 UTCEG score recompute
  14. 2026-09-27 16:01 UTCVendor advisory
  15. 2026-09-27 16:01 UTCGHSA enrichment
  16. 2026-09-27 03:20 UTCEG score recompute
  17. 2026-09-27 03:20 UTCVendor advisory
  18. 2026-09-27 03:20 UTCGHSA enrichment
  19. 2026-09-26 15:59 UTCEPSS rescore
  20. 2026-09-25 07:45 UTCVendor advisory
  21. 2026-09-25 07:45 UTCGHSA enrichment
  22. 2026-09-24 20:04 UTCEG score recompute
  23. 2026-09-24 20:04 UTCVendor advisory
  24. 2026-09-24 20:04 UTCGHSA enrichment
  25. 2026-09-24 08:15 UTCVendor advisory
  26. 2026-09-24 08:15 UTCGHSA enrichment
  27. 2026-09-23 20:34 UTCEG score recompute
  28. 2026-09-23 20:34 UTCVendor advisory
  29. 2026-09-23 20:34 UTCGHSA enrichment
  30. 2026-09-23 17:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  31. 2026-09-23 08:54 UTCVendor advisory
  32. 2026-09-23 08:54 UTCGHSA enrichment
  33. 2026-09-22 21:14 UTCEG score recompute
  34. 2026-09-22 21:14 UTCVendor advisory
  35. 2026-09-22 21:14 UTCGHSA enrichment
  36. 2026-09-22 09:34 UTCVendor advisory
  37. 2026-09-22 09:33 UTCGHSA enrichment
  38. 2026-09-21 21:48 UTCEG score recompute
  39. 2026-09-21 21:48 UTCVendor advisory
  40. 2026-09-21 21:48 UTCGHSA enrichment
  41. 2026-09-21 10:05 UTCVendor advisory
  42. 2026-09-21 10:05 UTCGHSA enrichment
  43. 2026-09-20 22:23 UTCEG score recompute
  44. 2026-09-20 22:23 UTCVendor advisory
  45. 2026-09-20 22:23 UTCGHSA enrichment
  46. 2026-09-20 20:16 UTCEPSS rescore
  47. 2026-09-20 10:42 UTCVendor advisory
  48. 2026-09-20 10:42 UTCGHSA enrichment
  49. 2026-09-19 22:52 UTCEG score recompute
  50. 2026-09-19 22:52 UTCVendor advisory
  51. 2026-09-19 22:52 UTCGHSA enrichment
  52. 2026-09-19 11:11 UTCVendor advisory
  53. 2026-09-19 11:11 UTCGHSA enrichment
  54. 2026-09-18 23:31 UTCEG score recompute
  55. 2026-09-18 23:31 UTCVendor advisory
  56. 2026-09-18 23:31 UTCGHSA enrichment
  57. 2026-09-18 19:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  58. 2026-09-18 11:50 UTCVendor advisory
  59. 2026-09-18 11:50 UTCGHSA enrichment
  60. 2026-09-18 00:08 UTCEG score recompute
  61. 2026-09-18 00:08 UTCVendor advisory
  62. 2026-09-18 00:08 UTCGHSA enrichment
  63. 2026-09-17 10:53 UTCVendor advisory
  64. 2026-09-17 10:53 UTCGHSA enrichment
  65. 2026-09-16 23:01 UTCEG score recompute
  66. 2026-09-16 23:01 UTCVendor advisory
  67. 2026-09-16 23:01 UTCGHSA enrichment
  68. 2026-09-16 14:08 UTCEPSS rescore
  69. 2026-09-16 11:20 UTCEG score recompute
  70. 2026-09-16 11:20 UTCVendor advisory
  71. 2026-09-16 11:20 UTCGHSA enrichment
  72. 2026-09-16 05:15 UTCEPSS rescore
  73. 2026-09-15 23:40 UTCVendor advisory
  74. 2026-09-15 23:40 UTCGHSA enrichment
  75. 2026-09-15 11:34 UTCEG score recompute

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Frequently asked(5)

What is CVE-2026-61898?
CVE-2026-61898 is a high vulnerability published on August 20, 2026. The Ubuntu-specific language helper scripts (save-to-pam-env, update-langlist) shipped with accountsservice before 23.13.9-8ubuntu7 treat the user-controlled LANGUAGE entry in ~/.pam_environment as trusted input. The value is interpolated unescaped into a GNU sed replacement expression, allowing an…
When was CVE-2026-61898 disclosed?
CVE-2026-61898 was first published on August 20, 2026, with the most recent update on August 28, 2026. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2026-61898 actively exploited?
CVE-2026-61898 is not currently on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. FIRST EPSS estimates a 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days (7th percentile of EPSS-scored CVEs).
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2026-61898?
CVE-2026-61898 has a CVSS base score of 7.8 (a secondary CVSS source that NVD displays; NVD's own analysis pending).
How do I remediate CVE-2026-61898?
A fix for CVE-2026-61898 is available: update to the fixed version the vendor names in its advisory. The vendor advisories EchelonGraph has for CVE-2026-61898 are linked in the Vendor Advisories panel on this page.

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