CVE-2026-24516 DigitalOcean Droplet Agent: Command Injection via Metadata Service Endpoint
An attacker controlling metadata responses can inject arbitrary OS commands executed with root privileges via the Droplet Agent's troubleshooting component.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-24516?
CVE-2026-24516 is a high-severity command injection vulnerability in n/a, published on 23 Mar 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
A command injection vulnerability exists in DigitalOcean Droplet Agent through 1.3.2. The troubleshooting actioner component (internal/troubleshooting/actioner/actioner.go) processes metadata from the metadata service endpoint and executes commands specified in the TroubleshootingAgent.Requesting array without adequate input validation. While the code validates that artifacts exist in the validInvestigationArtifacts map, it fails to sanitize the actual command content after the "command:" prefix. This allows an attacker who can control metadata responses to inject and execute arbitrary OS commands with root privileges. The attack is triggered by sending a TCP packet with specific sequence numbers to the SSH port, which causes the agent to fetch metadata from http://169.254.169.254/metadata/v1.json. The vulnerability affects the command execution flow in internal/troubleshooting/actioner/actioner.go (insufficient validation), internal/troubleshooting/command/exec.go (direct exec.CommandContext call), and internal/troubleshooting/command/command.go (command parsing without sanitization). This can lead to complete system compromise, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, and potential lateral movement across cloud infrastructure.
Weakness: CWE-94
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-24516?
3 open source packages ship an affected version, including github.com/digitalocean/droplet-agent.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
github.com/digitalocean/droplet-agent Go | All versions | None |
github.com/digitalocean/droplet-agent Go | All versions to 0.0.0-20260107162243-1101ffcb5672 | None |
github.com/digitalocean/droplet-agent Go | All versions to 0.0.0-20260107162243-1101ffcb5672 | None |
How do I fix CVE-2026-24516?
Upgrade to a fixed version.
Upgrade, and pass arguments to programs as a list instead of through a shell. More about Command injection.
Is CVE-2026-24516 being exploited?
It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2026-24516 exists.
Public exploit code: 2 proofs of concept on GitHub.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-fh3m-562m-w4f6, GO-2026-4854.