CVE-2026-13760 — aws-cdk-lib
Fix: aws/aws-cdk#38133CVE-2026-13760 is a OS Command Injection vulnerability in aws-cdk-lib. A fix is available for aws-cdk-lib — see the affected versions and patch details below.
OS Command Injection in aws-cdk-lib Docker Bundling
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-13760.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
aws-cdk-libnpmDescription
Summary
AWS CDK (aws-cdk-lib) is an open-source framework for defining cloud infrastructure in code and provisioning it through AWS CloudFormation. OS command injection issue in the NodejsFunction Docker bundling pipeline in aws-cdk-lib before 2.260.0 that might allow an actor who controls dependency version strings in a project's package.json file to execute arbitrary commands on the host running the CDK toolchain via injected shell metacharacters in the OsCommand helper. This issue requires the actor to control the content of a package.json dependency version string that is processed during Docker-based bundling with nodeModules specified.
Impact
During Docker-based Lambda bundling, when the nodeModules option is specified, NodejsFunction assembled a shell command string, including file-operation commands generated by an internal OsCommand helper, from the version strings of the modules listed in nodeModules, and executed it via a shell (bash -c) inside the bundling container. These version strings were interpolated without shell escaping, so values containing shell metacharacters could execute arbitrary commands inside the bundling container - which has read/write bind mounts to the host filesystem - with the privileges of the user running cdk synth, cdk deploy, or cdk diff. Leveraging this issue requires an actor to control a dependency version string for one of the listed modules - for example via an untrusted npm package referenced through nodeModules.
Impacted versions:
< 2.260.0
Patches
This issue has been addressed in aws-cdk-lib version 2.260.0 (PR #38133). We recommend upgrading to the latest version and ensuring any forked or derivative code is patched to incorporate the new fixes.
Workarounds
Ensure that the modules listed in the nodeModules bundling option - and the version strings declared for them in your project's package.json, as well as the versions of the corresponding installed packages - come only from trusted sources, and audit third-party constructs and dependencies that introduce them. Using local bundling instead of Docker-based bundling avoids the affected code path. Upgrading to a fixed version is the recommended remediation.
References
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, we ask that you contact AWS Security via our vulnerability reporting page or directly via email to [email protected]. Please do not create a public GitHub issue.
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank the external researcher Mostafa Ashraf who reported this issue through the AWS Vulnerability Disclosure Program (HackerOne @kaporia) for collaborating on it through the coordinated vulnerability disclosure process.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | aws-cdk-lib | all versions | 2.260.0npm install aws-cdk-lib@2.260.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for aws-cdk-lib, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update aws-cdk-lib to 2.260.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-13760 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-13760 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.