CVE-2026-24844 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.9) OS Command Injection vulnerability in chainguard.dev/melange. A fix is available for chainguard.dev/melange — see the affected versions and patch details below.
melange pipeline working-directory could allow command injection
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-2026-24844.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
chainguard.dev/melangeReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
melange allows users to build apk packages using declarative pipelines. From version 0.3.0 to before 0.40.3, an attacker who can provide build input values, but not modify pipeline definitions, could execute arbitrary shell commands if the pipeline uses ${{vars.}} or ${{inputs.}} substitutions in working-directory. The field is embedded into shell scripts without proper quote escaping. This issue has been patched in version 0.40.3.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | chainguard.dev/melange | ≥ 0.3.0&&< 0.40.3 | 0.40.3go get chainguard.dev/melange@v0.40.3 |
Affected Products
melangechainguardDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for chainguard.dev/melange, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update chainguard.dev/melange to 0.40.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-24844 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-2026-24844 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.