Distribution affected by pull-through cache credential exfiltration via www-authenticate bearer realm
Summary
| CVE | CVE-2026-33540 |
|---|---|
| State | PUBLISHED |
| Assigner | GitHub_M |
| Source Priority | CVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback |
| Published | 2026-04-06 15:17:10 UTC |
| Updated | 2026-04-09 18:36:53 UTC |
| Description | Distribution is a toolkit to pack, ship, store, and deliver container content. Prior to 3.1.0, in pull-through cache mode, distribution discovers token auth endpoints by parsing WWW-Authenticate challenges returned by the configured upstream registry. The realm URL from a bearer challenge is used without validating that it matches the upstream registry host. As a result, an attacker-controlled upstream (or an attacker with MitM position to the upstream) can cause distribution to send the configured upstream credentials via basic auth to an attacker-controlled realm URL. This vulnerability is fixed in 3.1.0. |
Risk And Classification
Primary CVSS: v3.1 7.5 HIGH from [email protected]
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
EPSS: 0.000270000 probability, percentile 0.075310000 (date 2026-04-07)
Problem Types: CWE-918 | CWE-918 CWE-918: Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF)
| Version | Source | Type | Score | Severity | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | [email protected] | Secondary | 7.5 | HIGH | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N |
| 3.1 | CNA | DECLARED | 7.5 | HIGH | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N |
CVSS v3.1 Breakdown
Attack Vector
NetworkAttack Complexity
LowPrivileges Required
NoneUser Interaction
NoneScope
UnchangedConfidentiality
HighIntegrity
NoneAvailability
NoneCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD Known Affected Configurations (CPE 2.3)
| Type | Vendor | Product | Version | Update | Edition | Language |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Application | Distribution Project | Distribution | All | All | All | All |
Vendor Declared Affected Products
| Source | Vendor | Product | Version | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CNA | Distribution | Distribution | affected < 3.1.0 | Not specified |
References
| Reference | Source | Link | Tags |
|---|---|---|---|
| github.com/distribution/distribution/security/advisories/GHSA-3p65-76g6-... | 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0 | github.com | Exploit, Mitigation, Vendor Advisory |
| CVE Program record | CVE.ORG | www.cve.org | canonical |
| NVD vulnerability detail | NVD | nvd.nist.gov | canonical, analysis |
No vendor comments have been submitted for this CVE.
There are currently no legacy QID mappings associated with this CVE.