CVE-2026-8643

Public on

Last Modified: UTC

Important Important severity What does this mean?
8 CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Description

A flaw was found in pip, the package installer for Python. A remote attacker can exploit this vulnerability by tricking a victim into installing a malicious Python wheel. This wheel contains specially crafted entry-point names that use directory traversal or absolute paths. This allows pip to write generated script wrappers outside the intended installation directory, leading to arbitrary file overwrite. This can severely impact system integrity and availability, and in certain scenarios, may lead to arbitrary code execution.

Statement

This Important flaw in pip's wheel installation process allows for arbitrary file overwrite due to path traversal. An attacker could exploit this by convincing a user to install a specially crafted malicious Python wheel. While file overwrites are limited to the installing user's permissions, using pip install with elevated privileges in Red Hat environments significantly increases the potential impact, potentially leading to system integrity compromise or arbitrary code execution.

Mitigation

To mitigate this issue, users should avoid installing Python wheels from untrusted sources. It is strongly advised against using `pip install` with elevated privileges, such as `sudo`, when installing wheels. Additionally, administrators should inspect `entry_points.txt` within wheels for path separators or absolute paths before installation.

Additional information

External References

Affected Packages and Issued Red Hat Security Errata

Unless explicitly stated as not affected, all previous versions of packages in any minor update stream of a product listed here should be assumed vulnerable, although may not have been subject to full analysis.

Products / Services Components State Errata
Exploit Intelligence exploit-intelligence-tech-preview/vulnerability-analysis-rhel9 Affected
Migration Toolkit for Applications 8 mta/mta-rhel9-operator Affected
Migration Toolkit for Virtualization migration-toolkit-virtualization/mtv-rhel9-operator Affected
Migration Toolkit for Virtualization mtv-candidate/mtv-rhel9-operator Will not fix
OpenShift Lightspeed openshift-lightspeed-tech-preview/lightspeed-rag-tool-rhel9 Not affected
OpenShift Lightspeed openshift-lightspeed/lightspeed-service-api-rhel9 Not affected
OpenShift Service Mesh 3 openshift-service-mesh/kiali-rhel9-operator Not affected
Pen Drive Powered by Red Hat Lightspeed pen-drive/pen-drive-scanner-rhel9 Affected
Red Hat AI Inference Server rhaii/model-opt-cuda-rhel9 Affected
Red Hat AI Inference Server rhaii/vllm-cpu-rhel9 Affected

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authorities (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications ).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red Hat NVD cve.org
CVSS v3 Base Score 8 5.5 8
Attack Vector Network Local Network
Attack Complexity Low Low Low
Privileges Required Low Low Low
User Interaction Required None Required
Scope Unchanged Unchanged Unchanged
Confidentiality Impact High None High
Integrity Impact High High High
Availability Impact High None High

CVSS v3 Vector

Red Hat CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

NVD CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

cve.org CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Acknowledgements

This issue was discovered by AISLE in partnership with Red Hat from.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Red Hat's CVSS v3 score or Impact different from other vendors?

 For open source software shipped by multiple vendors, the CVSS base scores may vary for each vendor's version depending on the version they ship, how they ship it, the platform, and even how the software is compiled. This makes scoring of vulnerabilities difficult for third-party vulnerability databases such as NVD that only provide a single CVSS base score for each vulnerability. Red Hat scores reflect how a vulnerability affects our products specifically.

For more information, see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/762393.

My product is listed as "Under investigation" or "Affected", when will Red Hat release a fix for this vulnerability?
  • "Under investigation" doesn't necessarily mean that the product is affected by this vulnerability. It only means that our Analysis Team is still working on determining whether the product is affected and how it is affected.
  • "Affected" means that our Analysis Team has determined that this product is affected by this vulnerability and might release a fix to address this in the near future.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Will not fix"?

 A "will not fix" status means that a fix for an affected product version is not planned or not possible due to complexity, which may create additional risk.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
  • Upgrade to a supported product version that includes a fix for this vulnerability (recommended).
  • Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
  • Open a This content is not included.support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Fix deferred"?

 A deferred status means that a fix for an affected product version is not guaranteed due to higher-priority development work.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
  • Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
  • Open a This content is not included.support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.
  • Red Hat Engineering focuses on addressing high-priority issues based on their complexity or limited lifecycle support. Therefore, lower-priority issues will not receive immediate fixes.

What is a mitigation?

 A mitigation is an action that can be taken to reduce the impact of a security vulnerability, without deploying any fixes.

I have a Red Hat product but it is not in the above list, is it affected?

 The listed products were found to include one or more of the components that this vulnerability affects. These products underwent a thorough evaluation to determine their affectedness by this vulnerability. Note that layered products (such as container-based offerings) that consume affected components from any of the products listed in this table may be affected and are not represented.

Why is my security scanner reporting my product as vulnerable to this vulnerability even though my product version is fixed or not affected?

 In order to maintain code stability and compatibility, Red Hat usually does not rebase packages to entirely new versions. Instead, we backport fixes and new features to an older version of the package we distribute. This can result in some security scanners that only consider the package version to report the package as vulnerable. To avoid this, we suggest that you use an approved vulnerability scanner from our This content is not included.Red Hat Vulnerability Scanner Certification program.

My product is listed as "Out of Support Scope". What does this mean?

 When a product is listed as "Out of Support Scope", it means a vulnerability with the impact level assigned to this CVE is no longer covered by its current support lifecycle phase. The product has been identified to contain the impacted component, but analysis to determine whether it is affected or not by this vulnerability was not performed. The product should be assumed to be affected. Customers are advised to apply any mitigation options documented on this page, consider removing or disabling the impacted component, or upgrade to a supported version of the product that has an update available.