CVE-2026-22702 virtualenv Has TOCTOU Vulnerabilities in Directory Creation
Local attackers can exploit a race condition in virtualenv to redirect file operations via symlinks, potentially leading to privilege escalation or data modification.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-22702?
CVE-2026-22702 is a medium-severity vulnerability in pypa virtualenv, published on 10 Jan 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
virtualenv is a tool for creating isolated virtual python environments. Prior to version 20.36.1, TOCTOU (Time-of-Check-Time-of-Use) vulnerabilities in virtualenv allow local attackers to perform symlink-based attacks on directory creation operations. An attacker with local access can exploit a race condition between directory existence checks and creation to redirect virtualenv's app_data and lock file operations to attacker-controlled locations. This issue has been patched in version 20.36.1.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-22702?
4 open source packages ship an affected version, including virtualenv. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
virtualenv Bitnami | All versions | 20.36.1 |
virtualenv PyPI | All versions | 20.36.1 |
virtualenv PyPI | All versions | 20.36.1 |
virtualenv PyPI | All versions | 20.36.1 |
Linux distribution packages (5)
python-virtualenv SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Python 3 15 SP7 | All versions | 20.22.0-150400.9.9.1 |
python-virtualenv SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 16.0 | All versions | 20.29.3-160000.3.1 |
python-virtualenv SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 16.0 | All versions | 20.29.3-160000.3.1 |
python-virtualenv openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | All versions | 20.22.0-150400.9.9.1 |
python-virtualenv openSUSE:Leap 16.0 | All versions | 20.29.3-160000.3.1 |
Products include Virtualenv Virtualenv.
How do I fix CVE-2026-22702?
Upgrade virtualenv to 20.36.1 or later.
Is CVE-2026-22702 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-22702 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in pypa virtualenv
Sources
Also known as AZL-74210, AZL-74237, BIT-virtualenv-2026-22702, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-22702, ECHO-bff4-eee0-85f1, GHSA-597g-3phw-6986 and 12 more.