CVE-2026-40938Tekton Pipelines: Git Resolver Unsanitized Revision Parameter Enables git Argument Injection Leading to RCE
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.
Data: CVE.org, NVD, CISA KEV, FIRST EPSS, Ubuntu. Published as the sources state it, in English.
Affected products and versions
| Vendor | Product | Versions | |
|---|---|---|---|
| linuxfoundation | tekton pipelines | 1.0.0 – < 1.11.0 | |
| openshift builds | 1.7 | — | |
| openshift builds | 1.8 | — | |
| openshift pipelines | 1.21 | — | |
| Red Hat | OpenShift Lightspeed | — | |
| Red Hat | OpenShift Pipelines | all versions | |
| Red Hat | OpenShift Serverless | — | |
| Red Hat | Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) | — | |
| Red Hat | Red Hat OpenShift Builds 1.7.3 | all versions | |
| Red Hat | Red Hat OpenShift Builds 1.8.1 | all versions | |
| Red Hat | Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines 1.21 | all versions | |
| Red Hat | Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization 4 | — | |
| tektoncd | pipeline | >= 1.0.0, < 1.0.2, >= 1.2.0, < 1.3.4, >= 1.4.0, < 1.6.2, >= 1.7.0, < 1.9.3, >= 1.10.0, < 1.11.1 |
References and patches
- https://github.com/tektoncd/pipeline/security/advisories/GHSA-94jr-7pqp-xhcq ExploitVendor Advisory
- https://github.com/tektoncd/pipeline/releases/tag/v1.11.1 Release Notes
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:17546
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:24359
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:24484
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:26519
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:26538
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-40938
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2460292
- https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/2026/cve-2026-40938.json
CPE matches (NVD) (1)
cpe:2.3:a:linuxfoundation:tekton_pipelines:*:*:*:*:*:go:*:*≥ 1.0.0 < 1.11.0