What's the vulnerability?
Doco-CD is a GitOps continuous delivery tool that automatically deploys and updates Docker Compose projects/services and Swarm stacks. Prior to version 0.90.1, a trust-boundary flaw in OCI artifact verification allowed artifact-provided deployment config to influence the policy used to verify that same artifact. When global OCI signature verification was enabled via `OCI_TRUST_POLICY` (`enabled: true`), an attacker with write access to the configured OCI tag could publish an unsigned or improperly signed artifact containing `.doco-cd.yml` with `oci.verify: false`. This could cause signature verification to be bypassed and untrusted deployment content to be applied. This primarily impacts users deploying from OCI artifacts where deployment config is read from artifact contents (for example, poll/webhook flows without trusted inline deployment overrides). The issue is fixed by enforcing a strict trust boundary and no-downgrade behavior. First, artifact-contained `.doco-cd.yml` is treated as untrusted for OCI trust-policy override decisions. Second, if global `OCI_TRUST_POLICY.enabled` is `true`, per-deployment `oci.verify: false` cannot disable verification. Some workarounds are available. Do not source deployment config from untrusted OCI artifact contents. Use trusted inline `POLL_CONFIG.deployments` and avoid relying on artifact-contained trust-policy overrides. Restrict write/push permissions for OCI repositories/tags used by doco-cd. Prefer immutable digest pinning and protected release/tag workflows. Monitor for unexpected artifact digest changes and failed/suspicious verification events.
Business impact & how R4IM helps
This advisory is on our active-exploitation watchlist. Attackers are using it for initial access, privilege escalation or lateral movement in real-world intrusions. R4IM's offensive security and SOC teams already have detections, exploit replicas and remediation playbooks for this issue.
Targeted vulnerability assessment to confirm which of your assets are actually exploitable — not just theoretically affected.
Our pentesters chain this CVE into realistic attack paths so you see business impact, not just a scan finding.
If the affected product is internet-facing, our AppSec team will harden it against this and related OWASP-class issues.
Continuous monitoring with custom detections for this CVE deployed across your endpoints, identity and cloud.
Recommended remediation
- Inventory all assets running the affected vendor and product, including shadow IT and third-party hosted instances.
- Apply the vendor patch or mitigation referenced in the advisories below. Where no patch exists, isolate the asset or restrict network exposure.
- Hunt for indicators of prior compromise — exploitation of this class of bug often predates public disclosure.
- Deploy detections for the exploit primitives (network signature, EDR rule, WAF rule) and re-test after remediation.
Need help executing these steps? Our team typically completes validation and remediation within a single patch cycle. Request remediation support →
Vendor & research references
- https://github.com/kimdre/doco-cd/pull/1407 · security-advisories@github.com
- https://github.com/kimdre/doco-cd/releases/tag/v0.90.1 · security-advisories@github.com
- https://github.com/kimdre/doco-cd/security/advisories/GHSA-5rv3-qpp3-6jp5 · security-advisories@github.com
