CVE-2026-32946

Egress Policy Bypass via DNS over TCP in Harden-Runner (Community Tier)

LOW
2.7
CVSS Score
Published: March 20, 2026 at 03:58 AM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 10:36 AM UTC
2 products affected across 2 vendorsHarden RunnerHarden-Runner

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Severity
LOW2.7
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.3%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

Harden-Runner is a CI/CD security agent that works like an EDR for GitHub Actions runners. In versions 2.15.1 and below, the Harden-Runner that allows bypass of the egress-policy: block network restriction using DNS queries over TCP. Egress policies are enforced on GitHub runners by filtering outbound connections at the network layer. When egress-policy: block is enabled with a restrictive allowed-endpoints list (e.g., only github.com:443), all non-compliant traffic should be denied. However, DNS queries over TCP, commonly used for large responses or fallback from UDP, are not adequately restricted. Tools like dig can explicitly initiate TCP-based DNS queries (+tcp flag) without being blocked. This vulnerability requires the attacker to already have code execution capabilities within the GitHub Actions workflow. The issue has been fixed in version 2.16.0.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v < 2.16.0
Affected range stops below 2.16.0, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

References (2)

x_refsource_MISCProductRelease Notes
Source: cverecord
https://github.com/step-security/harden-runner/releases/tag/v2.16.0

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
HIGH
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
LOW
Integrity
NONE
Availability
NONE
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusANALYZED
CWE
CWE-693CWE-863

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