CVE-2026-33634: Aquasecurity Trivy Embedded Malicious Code Vulnerability

Should you act?

Exploited: patch now if you run it

CISA has confirmed exploitation in the wild. This signal is computed from CISA KEV, EPSS and CVSS data; it is not an editorial verdict.

• Yes, if you run Aquasecurity Trivy. CISA added this CVE to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2026-03-26, which means there is reliable evidence of exploitation in the wild. US federal agencies must remediate by 2026-04-09; treat that as the outer limit, not the target.
• EPSS 1.7%, percentile 78: FIRST’s model estimates a 1.7% chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days, higher than 78% of all scored CVEs (moderate). EPSS is a probability, not a verdict.
• Needs an account (low (any account)). Exposure depends on who can log in.
• Only applies if your dependency tree includes github.com/aquasecurity/trivy (Go) = 0.69.4, no fixed version listed; aquasecurity/trivy-action (GitHub Actions) < 0.35.0, fixed in 0.35.0; aquasecurity/setup-trivy (GitHub Actions) < 0.2.6, fixed in 0.2.6. Check your lockfile, including transitive dependencies.
• Editorial verdict: Check exposure. Trivy Supply-Chain Hijack: trivy-action Steals CI Secrets — If any pipeline ran trivy-action by tag, setup-trivy, or Trivy 0.69.4 to 0.69.6 during the March 19-23, 2026 windows, every secret that job could see is burned; if you pinned SHAs, digests or 0.69.3, you were fine.

What it is

Trivy is a security scanner. On March 19, 2026, a threat actor used compromised credentials to publish a malicious Trivy v0.69.4 release, force-push 76 of 77 version tags in aquasecurity/trivy-action to credential-stealing malware, and replace all 7 tags in aquasecurity/setup-trivy with malicious commits. This incident is a continuation of the supply chain attack that began in late February 2026. Following the initial disclosure on March 1, credential rotation was performed but was not atomic (not all credentials were revoked simultaneously). The attacker could have use a valid token to exfiltrate newly rotated secrets during the rotation window (which lasted a few days). This could have allowed the attacker to retain access and execute the March 19 attack. Affected components include the aquasecurity/trivy Go / Container image version 0.69.4, the aquasecurity/trivy-action GitHub Action versions 0.0.1 – 0.34.2 (76/77), and theaquasecurity/setup-trivy GitHub Action versions 0.2.0 – 0.2.6, prior to the recreation of 0.2.6 with a safe commit. Known safe versions include versions 0.69.2 and 0.69.3 of the Trivy binary, version 0.35.0 of trivy-action, and version 0.2.6 of setup-trivy. Additionally, take other mitigations to ensure the safety of secrets. If there is any possibility that a compromised version ran in one's environment, all secrets accessible to affected pipelines must be treated as exposed and rotated immediately. Check whether one's organization pulled or executed Trivy v0.69.4 from any source. Remove any affected artifacts immediately. Review all workflows using aquasecurity/trivy-action or aquasecurity/setup-trivy. Those who referenced a version tag rather than a full commit SHA should check workflow run logs from March 19–20, 2026 for signs of compromise. Look for repositories named tpcp-docs in one's GitHub organization. The presence of such a repository may indicate that the fallback exfiltration mechanism was triggered and secrets were successfully stolen. Pin GitHub Actions to full, immutable commit SHA hashes, don't use mutable version tags.

From the GitHub advisory

Summary

On March 19, 2026, a threat actor used compromised credentials to publish a malicious Trivy v0.69.4 release, force-push 76 of 77 version tags in aquasecurity/trivy-action to credential-stealing malware, and replace all 7 tags in aquasecurity/setup-trivy with malicious commits. On March 22, 2026, a threat actor used compromised credentials to publish a malicious Trivy v0.69.5 and v0.69.6 DockerHub images.

Exposure Window

| Component | Start (UTC) | End (UTC) | Duration | | ------------- | ---------------------- | ----------------- | --------- | | trivy v0.69.4 | 2026-03-19 18:22 [^1] | 2026-03-19 ~21:42 | ~3 hours | | trivy-action | 2026-03-19 ~17:43 [^2] | 2026-03-20 ~05:40 | ~12 hours | | setup-trivy | 2026-03-19 ~17:43 [^2] | 2026-03-19 ~21:44 | ~4 hours | | dockerhub trivy images v0.69.5 and v0.69.6 | 2026-03-22 15:43 | 2026-03-23 ~01:40 | ~10 hours |

[^1]: Time when v0.69.4 release artifacts became publicly available. The malicious tag was pushed at ~17:43 UTC, triggering the release pipeline. [^2]: Earliest suspicious activity observed in our audit log. Affected Components

CISA’s summary

Aquasecurity Trivy contains an embedded malicious code vulnerability that could allow an attacker to gain access to everything in the CI/CD environment, including all tokens, SSH keys, cloud credentials, database passwords, and any sensitive configuration in memory.

Weakness type: CWE-506.

Product: Aquasecurity Trivy · Assigned by: GitHub_M · Published: 2026-03-23

Affected and fixed versions

Severity scores

• Attack vector: network (remotely reachable)
• Attack complexity: low
• Attack requirements: none
• Privileges required: low (any account)
• User interaction: none

CVSS measures how bad a flaw is if exploited, not how likely exploitation is. Read it next to the exploitation data below.

Exploitation and urgency

• CISA KEV: added 2026-03-26; federal due date 2026-04-09. Known ransomware use: Unknown.
• CISA required action: Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.
• CISA SSVC assessment: exploitation active, automatable no, technical impact total.
• FIRST EPSS (model of 2026-10-21): 1.75% probability of exploitation activity in the next 30 days; percentile 78.

Timeline

• 2026-03-19 — erroneo.us brief: Trivy Supply-Chain Hijack: trivy-action Steals CI Secrets
• 2026-03-23 — CVE record published by GitHub_M
• 2026-03-24 — GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-69fq-xp46-6x23 published (critical)
• 2026-03-26 — Added to CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog
• 2026-03-30 — CVE record last updated
• 2026-04-09 — CISA remediation deadline for US federal agencies

Sources and references

Original sources first. Version and fix details should always be confirmed against the vendor or project advisory.

Vulnerability records

1. GitHub Advisory GHSA-69fq-xp46-6x23 github.com
2. CVE.org record CVE-2026-33634 cve.org
3. NVD entry CVE-2026-33634 nvd.nist.gov

Government

1. CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog entry cisa.gov

Other references from the CVE record and advisory

1. github.com github.com
2. github.com github.com
3. github.com github.com
4. docs.litellm.ai docs.litellm.ai
5. futuresearch.ai futuresearch.ai
6. github.com github.com
7. github.com github.com
8. inspector.pypi.io inspector.pypi.io
9. inspector.pypi.io inspector.pypi.io
10. wiz.io wiz.io
11. rosesecurity.dev rosesecurity.dev
12. microsoft.com microsoft.com
13. github.com github.com

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