Renovate before 44.3.1 Authentication Bypass via Digest Updates

Summary

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`.

Timeline

1. Sep 10, 2026, 1:05 PM UTCCVE published
2. Sep 10, 2026, 3:04 PM UTCCISA SSVC assessment

   Exploitation: none · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial

3. Sep 29, 2026, 10:10 PM UTCRecord last updated

Affected versions

• renovatebot renovate

  fixed in 44.3.1

• mend renovate-ce

  fixed in 15.4.0

• mend renovate-ee-server

  fixed in 15.4.0

• mend renovate-ee-worker

  fixed in 15.4.0

• mend mend-renovate-ce

  fixed in 15.4.0

• mend mend-renovate-enterprise-edition

  fixed in 10.4.0

References 2