CVE-2026-24516 — Vulnerability in...
HIGH
DigitalOcean Droplet Agent: Command Injection via Metadata Service Endpoint
Published March 23, 2026Updated March 26, 2026Source: osv
Summary
A command injection vulnerability exists in DigitalOcean Droplet Agent through 1.3.2. The troubleshooting actioner component (internal/troubleshooting/actioner/actioner.go) processes metadata from the metadata service endpoint and executes commands specified in the TroubleshootingAgent.Requesting array without adequate input validation. While the code validates that artifacts exist in the validInvestigationArtifacts map, it fails to sanitize the actual command content after the "command:" prefix. This allows an attacker who can control metadata responses to inject and execute arbitrary OS commands with root privileges. The attack is triggered by sending a TCP packet with specific sequence numbers to the SSH port, which causes the agent to fetch metadata from http://169.254.169.254/metadata/v1.json.
The vulnerability affects the command execution flow in internal/troubleshooting/actioner/actioner.go (insufficient validation), internal/troubleshooting/command/exec.go (direct exec.CommandContext call), and internal/troubleshooting/command/command.go (command parsing without sanitization). This can lead to complete system compromise, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, and potential lateral movement across cloud infrastructure.
Advisory Timeline
- First published March 23, 2026 (203 days ago).
- Last revised March 26, 2026 — 3 days after initial publication.
Affected Packages (1)
Affects 1 ecosystem: go (1).
| Package | Ecosystem | Affected | Fixed In |
|---|---|---|---|
| github.com/digitalocean/droplet-agent | go | All versions | Range-based data available |
Vulnerability Classification
Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) identifiers for this vulnerability type.
- CWE-77
CVSS Score Breakdown
What the CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) 8.8 score means for each attack dimension.
Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
References
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-24516ADVISORY
- https://github.com/digitalocean/droplet-agentPACKAGE
- https://github.com/digitalocean/droplet-agent/blob/main/internal/troubleshooting/actioner/actioner.goWEB
- https://github.com/digitalocean/droplet-agent/blob/main/internal/troubleshooting/command/command.goWEB
- https://github.com/digitalocean/droplet-agent/blob/main/internal/troubleshooting/command/exec.goWEB
- https://github.com/poxsky/CVE-2026-24516-DigitalOcean-RCEWEB
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2026-24516?
- DigitalOcean Droplet Agent: Command Injection via Metadata Service Endpoint This vulnerability has been assigned a severity rating of HIGH (CVSS score: 8.8/10).
- How do I check if my project is affected by CVE-2026-24516?
- CVE-2026-24516 affects github.com/digitalocean/droplet-agent. Use GeekWala's free vulnerability scanner to check your dependencies against CVE-2026-24516 and 200,000+ other known vulnerabilities.
Severity & Exploitability
CVSS Score
8.8
High exploitability or significant impact. Prioritize remediation within days.
Also Known As
GHSA-fh3m-562m-w4f6
GO-2026-4854
Related CVEs
- CVE-2026-107809HIGH
Nginx-UI AuthRequired token cookie fallback enables CSRF against management APIs
- CVE-2026-107813HIGH
Nginx UI: Incomplete fix of CVE-2026-84315 - the api/cluster router was not - wrapped in RequireSecureSession, so those sensitive mutations run without OTP step-up
Check if you're affected
Scan your dependencies to see if this vulnerability affects your projects.
Scan Your Dependencies