Vulnerability · Published Sep 10, 2026 · Assigned by VulnCheck
CVE-2026-88884Renovate before 44.3.1 Authentication Bypass via Digest Updates
Medium 5.8
In plain English
A medium-severity incorrect authorization in mend-renovate-ce from mend. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.3% (higher than 23% of all known vulnerabilities).
Official description
Renovate is a dependency update automation tool. In versions before 44.3.1 (and Mend Renovate CE/EE images before 15.4.0, mend-renovate-ce Helm chart before 15.4.0, mend-renovate-enterprise-edition Helm chart before 10.4.0), digest updates are not subject to the internal `minimumReleaseAge` (stability age) checks. When a repository configures `minimumReleaseAge` and has dependencies with `updateType=digest` — for example GitHub Actions pinned to a commit SHA with a floating tag, Docker images, Go modules or NuGet packages — Renovate will still open a pull request for a newly published digest, marked only with a pending `renovate/stability-days` status check. A newly published, potentially malicious dependency version can therefore cause a PR to be raised and CI workflows to potentially run before the configured minimum release age has elapsed, which is precisely what the Minimum Release Age control is intended to prevent. The issue is fixed in Renovate 44.3.1; as a workaround, digest updates can be disabled or gated behind `dependencyDashboardApproval`.
Affected products (as reported)
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| renovatebot | renovate | 0 – before 44.3.1 |
| mend | renovate-ce | 0 – before 15.4.0 |
| mend | renovate-ee-server | 0 – before 15.4.0 |
| mend | renovate-ee-worker | 0 – before 15.4.0 |
| mend | mend-renovate-ce | 0 – before 15.4.0 |
| mend | mend-renovate-enterprise-edition | 0 – before 10.4.0 |
Weakness: CWE-863 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:L/A:N
References
- GitHub Security Advisory (GHSA-g4qr-hw2h-687r) vendor-advisory
- VulnCheck Advisory: Renovate before 44.3.1 Authentication Bypass via Digest Updates third-party-advisory