Executive brief
Renovate is a dependency automation tool used by development teams to manage package updates across their codebase. An attacker with write access to a repository scanned by Renovate can embed malicious commands in a Chart.yaml file that will be executed on the machine running Renovate, potentially compromising the entire CI/CD system and any data it has access to.
Technical details
The helmv3 manager in Renovate appends user-provided repository URLs from Chart.yaml files directly to helm registry login commands without proper shell escaping via the shlex.quote() function. The vulnerable code in lib/modules/manager/helmv3/common.ts fails to sanitize the repository variable before passing it to shell execution, allowing command injection through specially crafted repository URLs (e.g., "oci://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami || kill 1"). An attacker with write access to a repository monitored by Renovate can inject arbitrary commands that execute with the privileges of the Renovate process. The vulnerability requires the attacker to have repository write access and the repository to be configured for Renovate scanning, but requires no user interaction. The issue has existed since version 31.51.0 (released January 2022) and is fixed in version 40.33.0.
Affected products
- Renovate renovate >= 31.51.0, < 40.33.0
Timeline
- 2026-01-13: disclosed: Advisory GHSA-3f44-xw83-3pmg published
- 2026-01-24: patched: Patch released in version 40.33.0