CVE-2026-44189

Red Hat · Ansible Automation Platform

A flaw in the Visual Studio Code Ansible Lightspeed extension allows for argument injection via the AnsiblePlaybookRunProvider.

Executive summary

A vulnerability in the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform extension for Visual Studio Code may allow an attacker to perform argument injection, leading to potential system compromise.

Vulnerability

This is an argument injection vulnerability (CWE-88) occurring within the AnsiblePlaybookRunProvider. The vulnerability requires user interaction to trigger, and the attacker operates with the privileges of the local user running the extension.

Business impact

Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could lead to arbitrary command execution on the developer's workstation. Given the CVSS score of 7.8, this represents a high-risk scenario where an attacker could gain unauthorized access to sensitive development environments, credentials, or source code, potentially resulting in significant data loss or lateral movement within the corporate network.

Remediation

Immediate Action: Review the official Red Hat security advisory and apply all provided updates for the Ansible Lightspeed extension immediately.

Proactive Monitoring: Monitor developer workstations for anomalous process execution patterns or unexpected shell commands initiated by the Visual Studio Code environment.

Compensating Controls: Ensure that developers follow the principle of least privilege by running development tools with the minimum necessary permissions to limit the impact of potential command injection.

Exploitation status

Public Exploit Available: Unknown

Analyst recommendation

Organizations utilizing the Ansible Lightspeed extension should prioritize the identification of affected instances and apply vendor patches as soon as they become available. Given the potential for total impact on the affected system, immediate attention is required to mitigate this high-severity risk.