CVE-2026-24049

Description

wheel is a command line tool for manipulating Python wheel files, as defined in PEP 427. In versions 0.40.0 through 0.46.1, the unpack function is vulnerable to file permission modification through mishandling of file permissions after extraction. The logic blindly trusts the filename from the archive header for the chmod operation, even though the extraction process itself might have sanitized the path. Attackers can craft a malicious wheel file that, when unpacked, changes the permissions of critical system files (e.g., /etc/passwd, SSH keys, config files), allowing for Privilege Escalation or arbitrary code execution by modifying now-writable scripts. This issue has been fixed in version 0.46.2.

Read the notes from the security team

Status

Show unmaintained releases

Package	Ubuntu Release	Status
wheel	26.04 LTS resolute	Not affected
	25.10 questing	Vulnerable
	24.04 LTS noble	Fixed 0.42.0-2ubuntu0.1~esm1
	22.04 LTS jammy	Not affected
	20.04 LTS focal	Not affected
	18.04 LTS bionic	Not affected
	16.04 LTS xenial	Not affected
	14.04 LTS trusty	Not affected
python-pip	26.04 LTS resolute	Needs evaluation
	25.10 questing	Needs evaluation
	24.04 LTS noble	Needs evaluation
	22.04 LTS jammy	Needs evaluation
	20.04 LTS focal	Needs evaluation
	18.04 LTS bionic	Needs evaluation
	16.04 LTS xenial	Needs evaluation
	14.04 LTS trusty	Needs evaluation

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Notes

mdeslaur

On focal and earlier, the python-pip package bundles wheel binaries when built. After updating wheel, a no-change rebuild of python-pip is required. On jammy and later, wheel is bundled in the python-pip package and needs to be patched.

Patch details

For informational purposes only. We recommend not to cherry-pick updates. How can I get the fixes?

Package	Patch details
wheel	Upstream: 7a7d2de

Severity score breakdown

Parameter	Value
Base score	7.1 · High
Attack vector	Local
Attack complexity	Low
Privileges required	None
User interaction	Required
Scope	Unchanged
Confidentiality	None
Integrity impact	High
Availability impact	High
Vector	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H

References

Related Ubuntu Security Notices (USN)

USN-8221-1
wheel vulnerability
29 April 2026