Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-28407

Chainguard Malcontent ≤ 1.21.0

Published
27 February 2026
Modified
03 March 2026
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v4 6.9
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
EPSS Score 0.0035 28th percentile
Risk Priority 41 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-28407 is a medium-severity Improper Check or Handling of Exceptional Conditions (CWE-703) vulnerability in Chainguard Malcontent. Its CVSS base score is 6.9 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Endpoint Denial of Service (T1499); ranked at the 28th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SC-24 (Fail in Known State) and SI-17 (Fail-safe Procedures) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

A10:2025 Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

malcontent is software for discovering supply-chain compromises through context, differential analysis, and YARA. Prior to version 1.21.0, malcontent would remove nested archives which failed to extract which could potentially leave malicious content. A better approach is to preserve these archives…

more

so that malcontent can attempt a best-effort scan of the archive bytes. Version 1.21.0 fixes the issue.

CWE(s)
CWE-703

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
attack.mitre.org →
T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
attack.mitre.org →
T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
attack.mitre.org →
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
attack.mitre.org →
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
attack.mitre.org →
T1210 Exploitation of Remote Services Lateral Movement
Adversaries may exploit remote services to gain unauthorized access to internal systems once inside of a network.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-24846Same product: Chainguard Malcontent
CVE-2026-24845Same product: Chainguard Malcontent
CVE-2025-68135Shared CWE-703
CVE-2024-0092Shared CWE-703
CVE-2023-0004Shared CWE-703
CVE-2024-38482Shared CWE-703
CVE-2026-56338Shared CWE-703
CVE-2024-29205Shared CWE-703
CVE-2026-29643Shared CWE-703
CVE-2025-13022Shared CWE-703

Affected Assets

chainguard
malcontent
≤ 1.21.0

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

SC-24 Fail in Known State good match

Enforces failure to a known state while preserving required properties, limiting impact of unhandled exceptions.

SI-17 Fail-safe Procedures good match

Mandates explicit fail-safe procedures triggered by indicated failures, structurally preventing unhandled exceptional conditions.

SA-8 Security and Privacy Engineering Principles partial match

Requires application of security engineering principles that include robust exception and error handling during design.

SI-11 Error Handling partial match

Requires generation of safe, actionable error messages that directly addresses proper handling of exceptional conditions.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices explicitly require anticipating and correctly handling exceptional conditions during design and coding.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

A.6.8 Information security event reporting none match
none

Reporting of unhandled errors or exceptional conditions surfaces latent failure paths so they can be corrected before exploitation.

References