CVE-2023-37264
Pipelines do not validate child UIDs
- Published
- Updated
- Reserved
- Assigned by
- GitHub_M
Description
Tekton Pipelines project provides k8s-style resources for declaring CI/CD-style pipelines. Starting in version 0.35.0, pipelines do not validate child UIDs, which means that a user that has access to create TaskRuns can create their own Tasks that the Pipelines controller will accept as the child Task. While the software stores and validates the PipelineRun's (api version, kind, name, uid) in the child Run's OwnerReference, it only store (api version, kind, name) in the ChildStatusReference. This means that if a client had access to create TaskRuns on a cluster, they could create a child TaskRun for a pipeline with the same name + owner reference, and the Pipeline controller picks it up as if it was the original TaskRun. This is problematic since it can let users modify the config of Pipelines at runtime, which violates SLSA L2 Service Generated / Non-falsifiable requirements. This issue can be used to trick the Pipeline controller into associating unrelated Runs to the Pipeline, feeding its data through the rest of the Pipeline. This requires access to create TaskRuns, so impact may vary depending on one Tekton setup. If users already have unrestricted access to create any Task/PipelineRun, this does not grant any additional capabilities. As of time of publication, there are no known patches for this issue.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. CISA's SSVC rates its exploitation: a proof of concept is public.
Timeline
ID reserved
By GitHub_M
- 8 days later
· 8 days later
Published
- 16 months later
· 16 months later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub_MCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | Low3.7 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | Medium4.3 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.38% · top 68% of all CVEs (7 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: poc · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Low 3.7.
Weakness
Affected products
Affected packages
From reviewed advisories of the GitHub Advisory Database.
- Gogithub.com/tektoncd/pipelineGHSA-w2h3-vvvq-3m53 (opens in a new tab)
References (3)
- https://github.com/tektoncd/pipeline/security/advisories/GHSA-w2h3-vvvq-3m53 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMx_transferred
- https://github.com/tektoncd/pipeline/blob/2d38f5fa840291395178422d34b36b1bc739e2a2/pkg/reconciler/pipelinerun/pipelinerun.go#L1358-L1372 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/tektoncd/pipeline/pkg/apis/pipeline/v1beta1#ChildStatusReference (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisory GHSA-w2h3-vvvq-3m53 (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://trackcve.app/cve/CVE-2023-37264)Record last updated .