Description

The Okta Privileged Access client does not reject a leading hyphen in the username portion of an SSH target. As a result, the value may be interpreted as a command-line option by the underlying SSH process.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "5.3",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-25T20:17:06.477Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-25T20:17:06.477Z",
  "executiveSummary": "A command-line argument injection vulnerability exists within the Okta Privileged Access client related to how it handles SSH target usernames.\nThe vulnerability arises from insufficient input validation of the username string, allowing a leading hyphen character to be misinterpreted by the underlying SSH process as a command-line flag or option.\nThis flaw enables an attacker to manipulate the SSH execution environment by injecting arbitrary options into the generated command string, potentially overriding secure defaults or altering connection behavior.\nThe risk implication includes the bypass of security controls, unauthorized configuration modification during the connection process, or unintended execution of arbitrary commands if specific SSH flags are leveraged.\nExploitation requires an attacker to provide a crafted username string containing a leading hyphen to the client interface when initiating an SSH session.\nThe impact is confined to the context of the user running the Okta Privileged Access client, though it may lead to privilege escalation or lateral movement depending on the environment configuration and the injected arguments.",
  "technicalDetails": "The root cause of this vulnerability is improper sanitization of user-supplied input when constructing the command string for the underlying SSH client. The Okta Privileged Access client fails to prepend a terminal separator (such as '--') or validate that the username string does not begin with a hyphen (0x2D).\nIn Unix-like environments, utilities such as the OpenSSH client ('ssh') interpret arguments beginning with a hyphen as command-line options rather than positional arguments (e.g., the target username). By injecting a username starting with a hyphen, an attacker forces the SSH utility to treat the subsequent string as a configuration parameter instead of a identity identifier.\nThe attack flow proceeds as follows: First, the attacker identifies a target host or session within the Okta Privileged Access workflow. Second, the attacker inputs a crafted username string formatted as '-o[OptionName]=[Value]' or other valid SSH command-line flags. Third, the client software passes this string directly into the shell command execution or the exec() family of functions without ensuring that the input is treated strictly as a positional argument.\nBecause the underlying SSH client parses the resulting command string from left to right, it encounters the injected argument before the destination host. This allows the attacker to manipulate the execution of the SSH binary by injecting flags such as '-F' to point to a malicious configuration file, '-oProxyCommand' to execute arbitrary commands upon connection, or '-oIdentityFile' to force the use of a specific local key. The exploitation is successful if the client process executes the SSH binary with the injected flag, effectively altering the intended security posture of the connection.\nThis vulnerability is classified as a command-line argument injection, which is a common vector for subverting intended logic in wrappers and management agents that interface with system utilities. The absence of input validation at the application boundary allows the SSH process to consume the malicious input as a legitimate instruction, bypassing intended operational parameters defined by the Okta client policy."
}