Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
low 2.7

CVE-2026-32946 json

Egress Policy Bypass via DNS over TCP in Harden-Runner (Community Tier)

published 2026-03-17 7 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2026-13517 , GHSA-g699-3x6g-wm3g

cvss
2.7
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 18%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Harden-Runner is a CI/CD security agent that works like an EDR for GitHub Actions runners. In versions 2.15.1 and below, the Harden-Runner that allows bypass of the egress-policy: block network restriction using DNS queries over TCP. Egress policies are enforced on GitHub runners by filtering outbound connections at the network layer. When egress-policy: block is enabled with a restrictive allowed-endpoints list (e.g., only github.com:443), all non-compliant traffic should be denied. However, DNS queries over TCP, commonly used for large responses or fallback from UDP, are not adequately restricted. Tools like dig can explicitly initiate TCP-based DNS queries (+tcp flag) without being blocked. This vulnerability requires the attacker to already have code execution capabilities within the GitHub Actions workflow. The issue has been fixed in version 2.16.0.

Patch / fix

  • github-actions step-security/harden-runner 2.16.0
  • stepsecurity harden-runner 2.16.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-32946 updated cvss 4.9

step-security/harden-runner: Harden-Runner: Egress policy bypass via DNS over TCP

  • Red Hat External Secrets Operator for Red Hat OpenShift external-secrets-operator/external-secrets-rhel9, external-secrets-operator/bitwarden-sdk-server-rhel9, external-secrets-operator/external-secrets-operator-rhel9, external-secrets-operator/external-secrets-operator-bundle Red Hat Gatekeeper 3 gatekeeper/gatekeeper-rhel9
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Multicluster Engine for Kubernetes multicluster-engine/work-rhel9, multicluster-engine/placement-rhel9, multicluster-engine/registration-rhel9, multicluster-engine/addon-manager-rhel9, multicluster-engine/registration-operator-rhel9
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat OpenShift for Windows Containers openshift4-wincw/windows-machine-config-rhel9-operator, openshift4-wincw/windows-machine-config-operator-bundle
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
7 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.26% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 18% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 4.0 4.6 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:H/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:H/SI:N/SA:N
CNA 4.0 4.6 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:H/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:H/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
NVD 3.1 2.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
github-actions step-security/harden-runner
<2.16.0
2.16.0

Affected products

  • step-security harden-runner

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-693 Protection Mechanism Failure
  • CWE-863 Incorrect Authorization

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

CPEs and fixed versions use Anchore's correction of NVD's data: Added CPE configurations because not yet analyzed by NVD.