CVE-2026-33540

Distribution affected by pull-through cache credential exfiltration via www-authenticate bearer realm

HIGH
7.5
CVSS Score
Published: April 6, 2026 at 02:55 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 10:37 AM UTC
2 products affected across 2 vendorsDistributionDistribution

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Severity
HIGH7.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.3%
SSVC
PoC

Description

Distribution is a toolkit to pack, ship, store, and deliver container content. Prior to 3.1.0, in pull-through cache mode, distribution discovers token auth endpoints by parsing WWW-Authenticate challenges returned by the configured upstream registry. The realm URL from a bearer challenge is used without validating that it matches the upstream registry host. As a result, an attacker-controlled upstream (or an attacker with MitM position to the upstream) can cause distribution to send the configured upstream credentials via basic auth to an attacker-controlled realm URL. This vulnerability is fixed in 3.1.0.

Affected

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

v < 3.1.0
Affected range stops below 3.1.0, 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 (1)

x_refsource_CONFIRMExploitMitigationVendor Advisory
Source: cverecord
https://github.com/distribution/distribution/security/advisories/GHSA-3p65-76g6-3w7r

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCPoCAutomatablePartial impact

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

CVSS

7.5HIGHGitHub_M
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
HIGH
Integrity
NONE
Availability
NONE
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusANALYZED
CWE
CWE-918

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