Vulnerability · Published Apr 21, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M
CVE-2026-40938Tekton Pipelines: Git Resolver Unsanitized Revision Parameter Enables git Argument Injection Leading to RCE
High 7.5
In plain English
A high-severity argument injection in pipeline from tektoncd. Proof-of-concept exploit code is public. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.8% (higher than 56% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Official description
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.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Go | github.com/tektoncd/pipeline | 1.11.1 | GHSA-94jr-7pqp-xhcq |
| Go | github.com/tektoncd/pipeline | 1.9.3 | GHSA-94jr-7pqp-xhcq |
| Go | github.com/tektoncd/pipeline | 1.6.2 | GHSA-94jr-7pqp-xhcq |
| Go | github.com/tektoncd/pipeline | 1.3.4 | GHSA-94jr-7pqp-xhcq |
| Go | github.com/tektoncd/pipeline | 1.0.2 | GHSA-94jr-7pqp-xhcq |
| Go | github.com/tektoncd/pipeline | 1.0.2, 1.11.1, 1.3.4, 1.6.2, 1.9.3 | GO-2026-5272 |
Affected products (as reported)
Weakness: CWE-88 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
References
- https://github.com/tektoncd/pipeline/security/advisories/GHSA-94jr-7pqp-xhcq x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/tektoncd/pipeline/releases/tag/v1.11.1 x_refsource_MISC
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-40938 vdb-entry, x_refsource_REDHAT
- RHBZ#2460292 issue-tracking, x_refsource_REDHAT
- https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/2026/cve-2026-40938.json x_sadp-csaf-vex
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:24359 vendor-advisory, x_refsource_REDHAT
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:17546 vendor-advisory, x_refsource_REDHAT
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:26538 vendor-advisory, x_refsource_REDHAT
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:26519 vendor-advisory, x_refsource_REDHAT
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:24484 vendor-advisory, x_refsource_REDHAT