CVE-2026-16493 vulnerability in Red Hat Products
Published on July 21, 2026
Ansible-core: argument injection in ansible-galaxy collection install via git clone (incomplete fix for cve-2026-11332)
A flaw was found in ansible-core. The _extract_collection_from_git() function in ansible-core's concrete_artifact_manager.py constructs git clone commands without a '--' (end-of-options) separator before user-supplied URLs when installing collections from git sources. An attacker who provides a crafted collection source URI containing git argument injection payloads can achieve arbitrary command execution when a user runs 'ansible-galaxy collection install' with the malicious source. This is an incomplete fix for CVE-2026-11332, which hardened the role install path but missed the equivalent collection install code path.
Vulnerability Analysis
CVE-2026-16493 can be exploited with local system access, requires user interaction. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to be very high.
Timeline
Reported to Red Hat.
Made public.
Weakness Type
What is an Argument Injection Vulnerability?
The software constructs a string for a command to executed by a separate component in another control sphere, but it does not properly delimit the intended arguments, options, or switches within that command string.
CVE-2026-16493 has been classified to as an Argument Injection vulnerability or weakness.
Products Associated with CVE-2026-16493
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