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Trivy was compromised in two connected supply-chain attacks in March 2026, followed by a later Docker Hub image wave. Attackers used access to Trivy’s release and GitHub Actions infrastructure to distribute a malicious Trivy v0.69.4, hijack most aquasecurity/trivy-action tags, replace all aquasecurity/setup-trivy tags, and publish malicious images labeled v0.69.5 and v0.69.6.
Organizations that ran affected artifacts should treat secrets available to those runners as potentially exposed, investigate historical workflow runs—not only current YAML files—and rotate credentials after revoking the old ones.
What happened
Trivy is an open-source security scanner for container and repository vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, secrets, SBOMs, Kubernetes environments, and cloud workloads. It is commonly executed inside CI/CD jobs, where it may run alongside credentials such as GITHUB_TOKEN, cloud keys, registry passwords, signing keys, package-publishing tokens, SSH keys, and Kubernetes credentials.
That made the compromise more serious than a normal malicious release. The affected payload was designed to run in developer or CI environments, search for credentials and secrets, package collected data, and exfiltrate it. Investigators reported encrypted archives, HTTP POST exfiltration, and the typosquatted domain scan.aquasecurtiy[.]org. These were capabilities and observed indicators, not proof that every affected execution exfiltrated data.
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The official incident record is GHSA-69fq-xp46-6×23. Microsoft published additional technical analysis, and Aqua said there was no indication that its commercial products were affected; that statement should be understood as Aqua’s position, not an independent certification.
The timeline
Late February and March 1: the initial foothold
Attackers exploited a misconfiguration in Trivy’s GitHub Actions environment and obtained privileged access. Aqua disclosed the first incident on March 1, 2026. Credentials were rotated, but the rotation was not fully atomic: not every relevant credential was revoked and replaced simultaneously. That left a path for residual access and enabled the later compromise.
The official advisory establishes the connection between the incidents. More specific claims about the initial exploit or attacker attribution should be treated cautiously unless supported by the relevant investigation.
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March 19–20: the second compromise
| Component | Exposure window, UTC | What was affected |
|---|---|---|
Trivy binary and images at v0.69.4 |
March 19, approximately 18:22–21:42 | Downloaded or executed affected releases |
aquasecurity/trivy-action |
March 19 approximately 17:43 through March 20 approximately 05:40 | Mutable tags were hijacked |
aquasecurity/setup-trivy |
March 19 approximately 17:43–21:44 | Tags were replaced with malicious commits |
The attacker published malicious Trivy v0.69.4, force-pushed 76 of 77 trivy-action version tags, and replaced all seven setup-trivy tags. The malicious artifacts were distributed through normal release channels, making them difficult to distinguish from legitimate tools without checking provenance.
March 22–23: the Docker Hub follow-on wave
The incident did not necessarily end on March 20. The advisory records malicious Docker Hub images labeled v0.69.5 and v0.69.6, exposed from approximately 15:43 UTC on March 22 until about 01:40 UTC on March 23. Teams that avoided the March 19 binary and Action windows could still have been exposed if they pulled those images during the later period.
Who may have been exposed?
Investigate if your organization:
- Used
aquasecurity/trivy-actionwith a mutable tag before version0.35.0. - Used
aquasecurity/setup-trivywithout a full commit-SHA pin. - Downloaded or executed Trivy
v0.69.4. - Pulled Docker Hub images tagged
v0.69.5orv0.69.6during the March 22–23 window. - Requested
version: latestintrivy-actionduring the binary compromise window. - Used a SHA-pinned wrapper that invoked a compromised setup dependency.
- Used cached, mirrored, or internally copied artifacts pulled during an affected period.
The advisory lists Trivy v0.69.3 and earlier, immutable image digests, source-built binaries, the official Homebrew formula, [email protected], safe post-incident Action commits, and known-safe full-SHA-pinned setup-trivy references as not affected under their stated conditions. These are conditional exclusions, not a blanket guarantee for every workflow or runner.
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A current safe tag also does not prove that an earlier workflow run was safe. Tags can move, and historical exposure depends on what the reference resolved to at execution time.
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1. Stop affected execution
Temporarily disable or remove references such as:
uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@...
uses: aquasecurity/setup-trivy@...Do not respond by switching from one mutable tag to another. Pause cached and mirrored copies until their provenance has been checked.
2. Search workflow history, not just source files
Search workflow definitions and completed runs for:
aquasecurity/trivy-actionandaquasecurity/setup-trivy;- Trivy
v0.69.4; - Docker images labeled
v0.69.5andv0.69.6; version: latestand unpinned Action references;- composite Actions or reusable workflows that wrap Trivy.
Review runs in the March 19–20 and March 22–23, 2026 UTC windows. The advisory also recommends searching workflow logs and repositories for tpcp-docs, an indicator associated with the incident.
3. Hunt for indicators
Check DNS, proxy, firewall, and endpoint telemetry for scan.aquasecurtiy[.]org, unusual outbound HTTP POST requests from runners, unexpected cloud API activity after Trivy jobs, newly created deploy keys, OAuth grants, GitHub Apps, runners, webhooks, packages, images, or release changes.
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On developer machines, investigate unexpected persistence involving ~/.config/systemd/user/sysmon.py and associated user systemd units. Do not assume every listed indicator appeared in every compromise.
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Respond as though runner-accessible secrets may be exposed
For affected jobs, revoke old credentials before or while issuing replacements. A practical order is:
- GitHub personal access tokens, deploy keys, and GitHub App credentials.
- AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud credentials.
- Container-registry credentials.
- Kubernetes tokens and kubeconfig credentials.
- SSH keys.
- npm, PyPI, RubyGems, Maven, Docker Hub, and other package-publishing tokens.
- Signing keys, release credentials, webhooks, Slack or Teams tokens, and third-party API keys.
Changing a secret without invalidating its predecessor is not enough. The first Trivy incident demonstrated how incomplete credential rotation can preserve attacker access.
For high-value environments, rebuild affected runners, invalidate caches, inspect artifacts produced by affected jobs, and review downstream systems that accepted packages, images, deployments, or credentials from them. Persistent self-hosted runners deserve host-level forensic review and may require a complete rebuild.
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Verify a replacement installation
Use a currently supported Trivy release after checking the project’s latest release and advisory information. Verify its signature or immutable digest. The official advisory provides this Sigstore verification example for a known artifact:
curl -sLO "https://github.com/aquasecurity/trivy/releases/download/v0.69.2/trivy_0.69.2_Linux-64bit.tar.gz"
curl -sLO "https://github.com/aquasecurity/trivy/releases/download/v0.69.2/trivy_0.69.2_Linux-64bit.tar.gz.sigstore.json"
cosign verify-blob
--certificate-identity-regexp 'https://github.com/aquasecurity/'
--certificate-oidc-issuer 'https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com'
--bundle trivy_0.69.2_Linux-64bit.tar.gz.sigstore.json
trivy_0.69.2_Linux-64bit.tar.gzThe expected result is Verified OK. This demonstrates verification; it is not a recommendation to use v0.69.2 indefinitely.
Harden GitHub Actions
Pin every dependency to a full commit SHA
Prefer a full 40-character commit SHA:
- uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@<full-40-character-commit-sha>over mutable references such as:
- uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@master
- uses: aquasecurity/[email protected]
- uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@latestSHA pinning prevents a tag from being retargeted, but it is not magic. Inspect composite Actions and reusable workflows recursively, and pin their dependencies too. A pinned wrapper can still invoke a mutable or compromised setup Action, download an unsafe binary, or execute code on an already-compromised runner.
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Reduce permissions and separate trust boundaries
permissions:
contents: readAdd only the permissions a job needs. Separate scanning from package publishing, signing, and production deployment so one compromised tool does not inherit every credential. Use different jobs, identities, environments, and approval gates.
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchTreat pull-request workflows as hostile, especially those using pull_request_target, attacker-controlled checkouts, runtime-downloaded scripts, or write-capable tokens. Prefer ephemeral runners, restrict runner egress, review Action changes, enforce an organization-wide allowlist, and use linters such as zizmor. GitHub’s guidance is available in its secure use of third-party Actions documentation.
Should you keep using Trivy?
There is no universal yes-or-no answer. The evidence points to a compromise of release and GitHub Actions infrastructure, not proof that Trivy’s vulnerability-detection engine is inherently unsafe. Trivy remains usable for organizations that can verify artifacts, pin dependencies, isolate runners, restrict credentials, and investigate historical executions.
A pause or reassessment is reasonable for teams that cannot audit workflow history, rotate credentials quickly, control transitive Actions, or provide stronger provenance and support guarantees required by regulated environments. A commercial scanner may offer centralized policy, support, and reporting, but changing scanners does not eliminate mutable references, overprivileged runners, weak credential rotation, or unverified dependencies.
The most directly relevant commercial category is CI/CD and GitHub Actions supply-chain hardening. Evaluate products and services for full-SHA enforcement, recursive dependency visibility, secret exposure detection, ephemeral runners, egress controls, artifact provenance, audit retention, and integration with IAM, SIEM, registries, and deployment systems. Also ask how the product itself is distributed.
The broader lesson
Security tooling is privileged software. A scanner can become an attack path when it runs in a CI job with broad credentials and unrestricted network access. The durable fix is not simply replacing Trivy: it is reducing trust, privilege, persistence, and unverified software in the entire build system.
For authoritative details, consult the official Trivy advisory, Microsoft’s analysis, and Aqua’s incident update.
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