Public vulnerability disclosure

CVE-2026-77157

ast-cli: Auto-update downloads are not verified against a checksum before execution

publishedCWE-353

ast-cli downloads two helper binaries, the Vorpal ASCA real-time engine and the SCA Resolver, from "download.checkmarx.com" as part of its auto-update flow, triggered by the Checkmarx’s "VSCode/JetBrains" extensions and by cx scan "sca-realtime". Prior to the fix, the downloaded archive was not verified against a checksum before extraction and execution. An attacker able to substitute the served archive could deliver an arbitrary binary that ast-cli would extract and execute the contents of the archive, since no integrity check was performed on the download. Successful exploitation requires compromising "download.checkmarx.com" and replacing the served archive with one containing an attacker-controlled binary. If the served archive had been replaced that way, any developer machine or CI pipeline invoking ASCA (via Checkmarx's VSCode/JetBrains extensions) or cx scan "sca-realtime" on an affected version would have extracted and executed that binary in place of the intended download. The download is now verified against a published SHA-256 checksum before extraction.

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Technical severity6.4 mediumCVSS 3.1 · CNA: Checkmarx

Published2026-10-22Source updated 2026-11-02

Collected2026-11-022 attributed sources

Fixes and workarounds

No remediation reported in collected sources.

Missing remediation information is not evidence that no patch exists.

Affected products and versions

Affected products, source version ranges and reporting authorities
Product	Versions	Authority
github.com/checkmarx/ast-cli Checkmarx `github.com/checkmarx/ast-cli` https://golang.org/pkg	≥ 0; ≤ 2.3.59 (affected, semver) 2.3.60 (unaffected, semver) Other versions: unaffected	CNA: Checkmarx

Version ranges are source assertions. Check the vendor advisory and your installed configuration before determining exposure.

CVSS assessments

CVSS scores, vectors and reporting authorities
Version / score	Vector	Authority
3.1 / 6.4 medium	`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`	CNA: Checkmarx
4.0 / 6.3 medium	`CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:H/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H`	CNA: Checkmarx

Exploit evidence

No exploit evidence in collected sources. This is not proof of no exploitation.

References

https://github.com/Checkmarx/ast-cliCNA: Checkmarx · product
https://github.com/Checkmarx/ast-cli/security/advisories/GHSA-vf6p-x2fw-5hcgCNA: Checkmarx · third-party-advisory