Attack Chain

1. An attacker gains control over dependency version strings in a project's package.json file, potentially via a compromised or untrusted npm package referenced through nodeModules.
2. The attacker inserts shell metacharacters (e.g., ;, |, &&) into one of the controlled dependency version strings.
3. A developer or CI/CD pipeline uses aws-cdk-lib with NodejsFunction and Docker-based bundling, with the nodeModules option specified, to deploy their cloud infrastructure.
4. During the bundling process, the CDK toolchain processes the package.json file to assemble a shell command string for operations inside the Docker container.
5. The NodejsFunction's internal OsCommand helper interpolates the malicious dependency version string into the shell command without proper escaping.
6. The bundling container executes the crafted shell command via bash -c, which interprets the injected shell metacharacters as distinct commands.
7. Arbitrary commands specified by the attacker are executed within the bundling container, leveraging its access to the host filesystem via read/write bind mounts.
8. The injected commands execute on the host machine, typically with the privileges of the user who initiated the cdk synth, cdk deploy, or cdk diff command.

Impact

Successful exploitation of CVE-2026-13760 allows an attacker to achieve arbitrary code execution on the developer's workstation or CI/CD environment where the AWS CDK toolchain is executed. This can lead to complete compromise of the build environment, exfiltration of sensitive source code, AWS credentials, or other intellectual property. The attacker gains the privileges of the user running the cdk commands, which can often be elevated, posing a significant supply chain risk. While no specific victim counts or sectors are mentioned, any organization using aws-cdk-lib with Docker-based bundling and susceptible to untrusted package.json dependency version string manipulation is at risk.

Recommendation

• Upgrade aws-cdk-lib to version 2.260.0 or later immediately to patch CVE-2026-13760.
• Audit all third-party constructs and dependencies in your package.json to ensure the modules listed in the nodeModules bundling option and their version strings come only from trusted sources.
• Consider using local bundling instead of Docker-based bundling for NodejsFunction where feasible, as this bypasses the affected code path.
• Ensure that any forked or derivative codebases incorporating aws-cdk-lib are also updated to address CVE-2026-13760.