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Vulnerabilities
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CVE-2026-9494

Updated on 16 Jul 2026

Severity

5.5 Medium severity

Details

CVSS score
5.5
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
CWE ID
Links
NISTCIRCLRHELUbuntu

Overview

About vulnerability

An information disclosure vulnerability exists in Canonical ubuntu-pro-client (formerly ubuntu-advantage-tools). The client validates Ubuntu Pro APT credentials by executing /usr/lib/apt/apt-helper using the download-file command. During this process, the secret bearer token is embedded directly in the cleartext URL component passed via the command-line arguments (argv), resulting in a URL format such as https://bearer:@esm.ubuntu.com/…/. On systems utilizing a default-mounted /proc file system where process-hiding mitigations (such as hidepid) are disabled, an unprivileged local attacker can monitor system processes and read the sensitive bearer token directly from /proc/cmdline while the helper process is actively running. This leaked token can subsequently be used to gain unauthorized access to the victim’s Ubuntu Pro or Expanded Security Maintenance (ESM) repositories.

Details

Affected product:
Ubuntu 18.04 ELS , Ubuntu 20.04 ELS
Affected packages:
ubuntu-advantage-tools @ 34 (+1 more)