malcontent OCI image pull credential exfiltration via malicious registry token realmGHSA-9m43-p3cx-w8j5
MEDIUMFix: chainguard-dev/malcontent@538ed00GHSA-9m43-p3cx-w8j5 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) CWE-522 vulnerability in github.com/chainguard-dev/malcontent. A fix is available for github.com/chainguard-dev/malcontent — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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 GHSA-9m43-p3cx-w8j5.
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
github.com/chainguard-dev/malcontentReal-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
Malcontent could be made to expose Docker registry credentials if it scanned a specially crafted OCI image reference. Malcontent uses google/go-containerregistry for OCI image pulls, which by default uses the Docker credential keychain. A malicious registry could return a WWW-Authenticate header redirecting token authentication to an attacker-controlled endpoint, causing credentials to be sent to that endpoint.
Fix: Default to anonymous auth for OCI pulls
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Oleh Konko from 1seal for discovering and reporting this issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/chainguard-dev/malcontent | ≥ 0.10.0&&< 1.20.3 | 1.20.3go get github.com/chainguard-dev/malcontent@v1.20.3 |
Affected Products
malcontentchainguardDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/chainguard-dev/malcontent, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/chainguard-dev/malcontent to 1.20.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-9m43-p3cx-w8j5 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-9m43-p3cx-w8j5 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.