CVE-2026-9494
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:<token>@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.
Scoring
- Severity
- MEDIUM
- CVSS base score
- 5.5
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
- EPSS probability
- 0.15%
- CWE
- CWE-214
- Published
- 2026-07-16
- Last modified
- 2026-07-16
Affected products
- Canonical ubuntu-pro-client (ubuntu-advantage-tools)
- Canonical Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
- Canonical Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
- Canonical Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
- Canonical Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
- Canonical Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
- Canonical Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
- Canonical Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
Weakness type
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