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Fencer Vulns
high 8.5

CVE-2026-40938 json

Tekton Pipelines: Git Resolver Unsanitized Revision Parameter Enables git Argument Injection Leading to RCE

published 2026-04-21 6 mo ago modified 2026-10-26 13 d ago also GHSA-94jr-7pqp-xhcq , GO-2026-5272 , EUVD-2026-24491

cvss
8.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.8%
EPSS 0.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 56%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Tekton Pipelines project provides k8s-style resources for declaring CI/CD-style pipelines. Starting in version 1.0.0 and prior to versions 1.0.2, 1.3.4, 1.6.2, 1.9.3, and 1.11.1, the git resolver's revision parameter is passed directly as a positional argument to git fetch without any validation that it does not begin with a - character. Because git parses flags from mixed positional arguments, an attacker can inject arbitrary git fetch flags such as --upload-pack=<binary>. Combined with the validateRepoURL function explicitly permitting URLs that begin with / (local filesystem paths), a tenant who can submit ResolutionRequest objects can chain these two behaviors to execute an arbitrary binary on the resolver pod. The tekton-pipelines-resolvers ServiceAccount holds cluster-wide get/list/watch on all Secrets, so code execution on the resolver pod enables full cluster-wide secret exfiltration. Versions 1.0.2, 1.3.4, 1.6.2, 1.9.3, and 1.11.1 fix the issue.

Patch / fix

  • go github.com/tektoncd/pipeline 1.0.2, 1.3.4, 1.6.2, 1.9.3, 1.11.1
  • Red Hat Red Hat OpenShift Builds 1.7.3 1780373835, 1780373846, 1780373867, 1780374084, 1780374151, 1780374228, 1780480839
  • Red Hat Red Hat OpenShift Builds 1.8.1 1778682920, 1778682930, 1778682932, 1778683134, 1778683229, 1778683436
  • Red Hat Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines 1.21 1780645012, 1781686494, cli-1.21.1
  • govulncheck-vulndb openSUSE Leap 16.0 0.0.20260723T184607-160000.1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:21483-1

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-2026-40938 updated cvss 8.5

github.com/tektoncd/pipeline: Tekton Pipelines: Arbitrary code execution and secret exfiltration via malicious git commands

  • Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines openshift-pipelines/pipelines-nop-rhel9, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-opc-rhel9, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-events-rhel9, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-cli-tkn-rhel9, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-hub-api-rhel9, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-webhook-rhel9, +22 more
    affected: workaround, no fix available
  • Red Hat OpenShift Builds 1.7.3 openshift-builds/openshift-builds-waiters-rhel9 1780374228, openshift-builds/openshift-builds-webhook-rhel9 1780374084, openshift-builds/openshift-builds-rhel9-operator 1780480839, openshift-builds/openshift-builds-controller-rhel9 1780373846, openshift-builds/openshift-builds-git-cloner-rhel9 1780374151, openshift-builds/openshift-builds-image-bundler-rhel9 1780373867, +1 more
    fixed: fixed in 1.7.3 RHSA-2026:24359
  • Red Hat OpenShift Builds 1.8.3 openshift-builds 1778682920, openshift-builds 1778682930, openshift-builds 1778682932, openshift-builds 1778683134, openshift-builds 1778683229, openshift-builds 1778683436
    fixed: fixed in 1.8.0 RHSA-2026:17546
  • Red Hat OpenShift Builds 1.9.2 openshift-builds/openshift-builds-operator-bundle 1792762900, openshift-builds/openshift-builds-rhel10-operator 1792749358, openshift-builds/openshift-builds-rhel10-operator 1792859629
    fixed: fixed in 1.9.2 RHSA-2026:89041
  • Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines 1.21 serve-tkn-cli-1-21-serve-tkn-cli 1.21.1, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-rhel9-operator 1780645012, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-operator-bundle 1781686494
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:26538
  • Red Hat OpenShift Lightspeed openshift-lightspeed/openshift-mcp-server-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines openshift-pipelines/pipelines-nop-rhel8, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-events-rhel8, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-cli-tkn-rhel8, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-hub-api-rhel8, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-webhook-rhel8, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-git-init-rhel8, +20 more Red Hat OpenShift Serverless openshift-serverless-1/kn-client-kn-rhel9, openshift-serverless-1/kn-plugin-func-func-util-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) rhoai/odh-ml-pipelines-driver-rhel8, rhoai/odh-ml-pipelines-launcher-rhel8, rhoai/odh-ml-pipelines-api-server-v2-rhel8, rhoai/odh-ml-pipelines-persistenceagent-v2-rhel8, rhoai/odh-ml-pipelines-scheduledworkflow-v2-rhel8 Red Hat OpenShift Builds 1.7.3 openshift-builds/openshift-builds-operator-bundle 1780485589, openshift-builds/openshift-builds-shared-resource-rhel9 1780477299, openshift-builds/openshift-builds-shared-resource-webhook-rhel9 1780477295 Red Hat OpenShift Builds 1.8.3 openshift-builds 1778671008, openshift-builds 1778671009, openshift-builds 1778674829, openshift-builds 1778684489
    +4 more products
    Red Hat OpenShift Builds 1.9.2 openshift-builds/openshift-builds-waiters-rhel10 1792762119, openshift-builds/openshift-builds-waiters-rhel10 1792839475, openshift-builds/openshift-builds-webhook-rhel10 1792680944, openshift-builds/openshift-builds-webhook-rhel10 1792835571, openshift-builds/openshift-builds-operator-bundle 1792863311, openshift-builds/openshift-builds-controller-rhel10 1792680723, +11 more Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines 1.21 openshift-pipelines/pipelines-nop-rhel9 1780984035, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-opc-rhel9 1780572821, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-cache-rhel9 1780402306, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-events-rhel9 1780983714, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-hub-ui-rhel9 1780633047, openshift-pipelines/pipelines-cli-tkn-rhel9 1780922870, +30 more Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization 4 container-native-virtualization/kubevirt-ssp-operator-rhel9, container-native-virtualization/kubevirt-template-validator-rhel9, container-native-virtualization/kubevirt-tekton-tasks-create-datavolume-rhel9, container-native-virtualization/kubevirt-tekton-tasks-disk-virt-customize-rhel9 Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer rhtas/ec-rhel9
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

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
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
6 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.79% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 56% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/tektoncd/pipeline/security/advisories/GHSA-94jr-7pqp-xhcq referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CISA ADP 3.1 8.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 8.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
CNA 3.1 8.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
GitHub 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
go github.com/tektoncd/pipeline
>=1.10.0, <1.11.1
>=1.7.0, <1.9.3
>=1.4.0, <1.6.2
>=1.2.0, <1.3.4
>=1.0.0, <1.0.2
>=1.1.0, <1.3.4
1.11.1
1.9.3
1.6.2
1.3.4
1.0.2

Affected products

  • tektoncd pipeline
  • Red Hat Red Hat OpenShift Builds 1.7.3
  • Red Hat Red Hat OpenShift Builds 1.8.1
  • Red Hat Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines 1.21
  • Red Hat OpenShift Lightspeed
  • Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines
  • Red Hat OpenShift Serverless
  • Red Hat Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI)
  • Red Hat Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization 4
  • Red Hat Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-88 Improper Neutralization of Argument Delimiters in a Command

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.