CVE-2026-78254

Publication date 7 September 2026

Last updated 16 September 2026

Ubuntu priority

Medium

Why this priority?

Cvss 3 Severity Score

7.4 · High

Score breakdown

Description

The ftp and scp tasks of Apache Ant can download files from a remote server. A malicious server can provide relative paths that allow it to write outside of the dedicated target directory for the download, making it possible to overwrite files of the attacker's choice using the permissions of the user running Ant in versions prior to Ant 1.10.18. In order to exploit this vulnerability, the server would either have to be malicious or be subject to a machine-in-the-middle attack. Additionally in the case of scp or the ftp task using ftps the server must pass the server identity checks performed by the tasks. For ftp tasks not using ftps a malicious server could act as a machine-in-the-middle to provide malicious files. Starting with Ant 1.10.18 both tasks will prevent writing outside of the destination directory by default. An option is available to disable this behavior in the unlikely case that the old behavior is required by existing build files. Mitigations: Users of scp and ftp (when using ftps) in any version of Ant should not bypass server identity checks. Users of ftp not using ftps should switch to ftps where possible. All users are recommended to upgrade to Apache Ant 1.10.18, which fixes this issue.

Status

Package Ubuntu Release Status
ant 26.04 LTS resolute
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

Severity score breakdown

CVSS version: CVSS v3.0

Base score 7.4 · High

Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

References

Other references

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