CVE-2026-88884 Renovate before 44.3.1 Authentication Bypass via Digest Updates
Attackers can bypass minimum release age checks for digest updates, causing malicious dependencies to trigger CI workflows prematurely in Renovate.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2026-88884?
CVE-2026-88884 is a medium-severity vulnerability in mend-renovate-ce, published on 10 Sep 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
Renovate is a dependency update automation tool. In versions before 44.3.1 (and Mend Renovate CE/EE images before 15.4.0, mend-renovate-ce Helm chart before 15.4.0, mend-renovate-enterprise-edition Helm chart before 10.4.0), digest updates are not subject to the internal `minimumReleaseAge` (stability age) checks. When a repository configures `minimumReleaseAge` and has dependencies with `updateType=digest` — for example GitHub Actions pinned to a commit SHA with a floating tag, Docker images, Go modules or NuGet packages — Renovate will still open a pull request for a newly published digest, marked only with a pending `renovate/stability-days` status check. A newly published, potentially malicious dependency version can therefore cause a PR to be raised and CI workflows to potentially run before the configured minimum release age has elapsed, which is precisely what the Minimum Release Age control is intended to prevent. The issue is fixed in Renovate 44.3.1; as a workaround, digest updates can be disabled or gated behind `dependencyDashboardApproval`.
Weakness: CWE-863
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-88884?
How do I fix CVE-2026-88884?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-88884 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2026-88884 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-88884 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-g4qr-hw2h-687r, GHSA-x9q2-x5p7-v69h.