High severity · published Apr 6, 2026
CVE-2026-33540
Distribution affected by pull-through cache credential exfiltration via www-authenticate bearer realm
7.5
CVSS
0.3%
EPSS
No
On KEV
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.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.3% · higher than 20% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
DI
distribution · distribution
< 3.1.0 · source: vendor, NVD
Affected product
DI
distribution
distribution
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