CVE-2026-61897 — accountsservice: incomplete privilege drop when running Ubuntu-specific language helper scripts

Description (CNA)

An Ubuntu-specific patch to AccountsService before 23.13.9-8ubuntu7 only partially drops privileges before launching language helper scripts. It changes the effective UID/GID to the target user but leaves the real UID as 0 (root). A shell spawned by a helper script inherits ruid=0 and may reset its effective UID to root, enabling local privilege escalation.

Affected (CNA)

Vendor / product	Versions
Canonical / accountsservice	affected 22.07.5-2ubuntu1 before 22.07.5-2ubuntu1.6; affected 23.13.9-2ubuntu6 before 23.13.9-2ubuntu6.1; affected 23.13.9-8ubuntu5 before 23.13.9-8ubuntu5.2; affected 23.13.9-8ubuntu6 before 23.13.9-8ubuntu7

CWE

CWE-273

References

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/accountsservice/+bug/2157985
https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2026-61897

ADP enrichment

CISA-ADP

No English description supplied.

No references supplied.