CVE-2024-29902 | Cosign vulnerable to system-wide denial of service via malicious attachments

Cosign provides code signing and transparency for containers and binaries. Prior to version 2.2.4, a remote image with a malicious attachment can cause denial of service of the host machine running Cosign. This can impact other services on the machine that rely on having memory available such as a Redis database which can result in data loss. It can also impact the availability of other services on the machine that will not be available for the duration of the machine denial. The root cause of this issue is that Cosign reads the attachment from a remote image entirely into memory without checking the size of the attachment first. As such, a large attachment can make Cosign read a large attachment into memory; If the attachments size is larger than the machine has memory available, the machine will be denied of service. The Go runtime will make a SigKill after a few seconds of system-wide denial. This issue can allow a supply-chain escalation from a compromised registry to the Cosign user: If an attacher has compromised a registry or the account of an image vendor, they can include a malicious attachment and hurt the image consumer. Version 2.2.4 contains a patch for the vulnerability.

Published: 2024-04-10 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Analyzed，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2024-29902 is rated Low Risk (33.5/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.66%). Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2024-29902

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.21% 0.66% +0.45%
2 2025-11-21 0.59% 0.21% -0.38%
3 2025-11-18 — 0.59% —

Full EPSS history (11 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2024-29902

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
4.2 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:H)
Even with access, the exploit needs extra luck, timing, or a fussy environment to actually work.
Privileges required (PR:H)
They need powerful rights—admin, root, or similar—before this pays off.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 0.5 3.6 [email protected]
5.9 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:H)
Even with access, the exploit needs extra luck, timing, or a fussy environment to actually work.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 2.2 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2024-29902

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2024-29902

GHSA-88jx-383q-w4qc · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: go — Cosign malicious attachments can cause system-wide denial of service

OS Trackers for CVE-2024-29902

vendor priority summary link
alpine — CVE-2024-29902: 1 source package rows (cosign); 9 state rows across 3 repos (3.20-community, 3.22-community, edge-community); fixed 0, open 9. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2024-29902
debian unimportant CVE-2024-29902 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (cosign), 3 status rows across 3 suites (forky, sid, trixie): resolved 3. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2024-29902
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-29902
suse medium CVE-2024-29902 severity moderate: SUSE including 10 source package names (2.5.0-7.1:cosign-2.2.4-150400.3.20.1, cosign-2.2.4-1.1, …), 15 product×package rows across 9 product lines (Container suse/cosign, SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, … (9 product lines)): Fixed 15. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-29902/

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2024-29902

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
sigstore cosign < 2.2.4 cpe:2.3:a:sigstore:cosign:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2024-29902

cvelogic Threat Intelligence