CVE-2026-40938

HIGH
Published Apr 21, 2026 Modified Apr 28, 2026 CWE-88

Description

Tekton Pipelines project provides k8s-style resources for declaring CI/CD-style pipelines. From 1.0.0 to before 1.11.0, 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. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.11.1.

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CVSS v3.1 Score

7.5
HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS — Exploit Prediction

0.0009
Probability of exploitation
0.25%
Percentile rank

EPSS estimates the probability that this vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. A higher score means more likely to be exploited.

Weakness Type (CWE)

CWE-88 CWE-88

Affected Products

Vendor Product
linuxfoundation tekton_pipelines

References

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2026-40938? +
Tekton Pipelines project provides k8s-style resources for declaring CI/CD-style pipelines. From 1.0.0 to before 1.11.0, 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. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.11.1. It has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (HIGH).
How severe is CVE-2026-40938? +
CVE-2026-40938 has a CVSS v3.1 score of 7.5 out of 10, rated HIGH. This is a high-severity vulnerability that should be prioritized for patching. The EPSS score is 0.0009, placing it in the 0th percentile for exploitation probability.
What products are affected by CVE-2026-40938? +
CVE-2026-40938 affects products from linuxfoundation, specifically: tekton_pipelines. Check the affected products table above for specific version ranges.
How do I check if I'm vulnerable to CVE-2026-40938? +
You can use Secably's free Website Scanner to check your website for known vulnerabilities. For infrastructure scanning, use the Port Scanner to identify exposed services that may be affected. Check the vendor advisories linked above for specific patch and version information.

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