CVE-2026-66902
9.8 CRITICALpublic exploit availablePublished 2026-08-04 · Updated 2026-08-05
AI risk analysis
- Summary
- This vulnerability allows an attacker to execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the application process by manipulating external_account credentials JSON.
- Exploitability
- Exploitation is relatively easy as it requires control over the configuration file and no opt-in gate guards the command execution.
- Blast radius
- If exploited, this could lead to complete compromise of the affected system or data loss.
- Prioritized remediation
- Update Google::Auth to version 0.06 or later to mitigate the risk.
Analysis generated locally by qwen2.5:7b-instruct (no data left the box). AI-assisted — verify against primary sources before acting.
NVD description
Google::Auth versions before 0.06 for Perl run a command named in an external_account credentials JSON via an ungated system call. The Pluggable subclass reads credential_source.executable.command from the credentials JSON and runs it as `system($command)`, a single argument call that passes the whole string to /bin/sh -c. The executable's environment_variables map from the same JSON is copied into %ENV first. No opt-in gate guards the call. make_creds selects the Pluggable subclass whenever credential_source.executable is present, so the path is reached from the standard Application Default Credentials flow, including a "type": "external_account" configuration read from the file named by GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS. Configurations without credential_source.executable do not select this subclass and do not reach the call. Any caller that builds credentials from a configuration it does not fully control runs the embedded command with the privileges of the application process.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weaknesses
CWE-78, CWE-829
Public exploit & PoC references
All references
Source data: NVD (nvd.nist.gov), public domain. Exploit-DB.ai adds local AI analysis for defensive use only.