KEV: Aquasecurity Trivy embedded malicious code (CVE-2026-33634)¶
Signal: Added to CISA KEV on 2026-03-26 (due 2026-04-09). Trivy is exploitable in the wild.
What it is¶
Aquasecurity Trivy contains an embedded malicious code vulnerability that could let an attacker access the CI/CD environment, including: - tokens - SSH keys - cloud credentials - database passwords - sensitive configuration in memory
References: - CISA KEV entry: https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog - GitHub advisory: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-69fq-xp46-6x23 - NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-33634
Triage (15 minutes)¶
- Inventory every place Trivy is used:
- developer laptops
- CI/CD runners
- container images
- k8s jobs / cronjobs
- GitHub Actions / GitLab CI / Jenkins pipelines
- Determine whether any Trivy usage can reach:
- repository secrets
- cloud credentials
- build-time tokens
- internal registries
- Check whether Trivy is baked into shared build images or automation that runs with broad workspace or network access.
Mitigation¶
- Update/replace immediately per vendor guidance.
- If you cannot remove it today:
- isolate Trivy execution to least-privilege runners
- avoid mounting high-value secrets into the scan environment
- prefer ephemeral jobs with short-lived credentials
- rebuild any shared CI images that include Trivy
Hunt / detection¶
- Review CI logs for unexpected Trivy runs or new pipeline steps.
- Look for suspicious access to:
- secrets managers
- cloud metadata endpoints
- package registries
- internal artifact stores
- Audit recent pipeline changes for new scanner images, wrapper scripts, or altered PATH behavior.
Recovery notes¶
If compromise is suspected, assume build-time secrets may be exposed: - rotate tokens and credentials reachable from the affected runner - invalidate compromised registry and cloud credentials - rebuild CI images from known-good sources - verify that no malicious binaries or scripts were introduced into the pipeline