Critical · published August 5, 2026
Google::Auth versions before 0.06 for Perl run a command named in an external_account credentials JSON via an ungated system call.
The Pluggable subclass reads credential_source.executable.command from the credentials JSON and runs it as `system($command)`, a single argument call that passes the whole string to /bin/sh -c. The executable's environment_variables map from the same JSON is copied into %ENV first. No opt-in gate guards the call. make_creds selects the Pluggable subclass whenever credential_source.executable is present, so the path is reached from the standard Application Default Credentials flow, including a "type": "external_account" configuration read from the file named by GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS. Configurations without credential_source.executable do not select this subclass and do not reach the call.
Any caller that builds credentials from a configuration it does not fully control runs the embedded command with the privileges of the application process.