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8.7

CVE-2026-89139: Temporal Server allows user to run commands on host

CVE-2026-89139 · published 20 days ago
Summary

An authenticated user who can write in a single Temporal namespace can tell the Temporal Server to execute any command on the machine where the server runs. Because the server process holds the database passwords and security certificates for the whole cluster, this can give the user control over the entire system. Fix it by updating to a version that disables the unsafe compute provider, restricting the allowed providers, and limiting write permissions to only trusted users.

What to do
  • Update temporal technologies, inc. temporal server to version 1.31.3 or later.
Affected software
VendorProductAffected versions
temporal technologies, inc. temporal server < 1.31.3
Original advisory text
Temporal Server worker deployment compute provider executes a caller-supplied command on the Worker Service host
Temporal Server compiles a Worker Controller Instance module into its Worker Service, and that module registers a compute provider named subprocess whose function is to launch a worker by running a command on the machine hosting the Worker Service. The program name and the argument vector that provider executes are taken from the compute provider configuration supplied in the caller's request rather than from operator configuration. An authenticated caller holding only a write role in a single namespace can therefore configure a worker deployment version so that the Worker Service executes a command of the caller's choosing on its own host, under the account the server process runs as. Execution is immediate rather than deferred: the configuration handler invokes every provider using the invoke strategy directly after validating the submitted specification, so no scaling decision, task arrival, or unusual request sequence is required. Because the Worker Service process holds the persistence credentials for every namespace in the cluster and the cluster's TLS material, the consequence reaches beyond the caller's namespace to the cluster as a whole. The provider is present in the official temporal-server binaries and container images for the affected releases. The only control that can keep it unreachable is the compute provider allowlist, the per-namespace dynamic configuration setting workercontroller.compute_providers.enabled, and that control does not deny by default: its default value is an unset list, and the allowlist check is skipped entirely when the value is unset, so every registered compute provider is permitted, this one included. To determine whether a deployment is affected, check the following together. The deployed Temporal Server version is 1.31.0 or later and earlier than 1.31.3. The Worker Service is running, which it is in the default service set and therefore in a stock deployment. The effective per-namespace value of workercontroller.compute_providers.enabled is either unset or contains subprocess. And authorization is configured, meaning a real authorizer and claim mapper are in place; a deployment running with no authorizer already grants every caller unrestricted access to every namespace, so it has no namespace boundary for this to cross. Note that the separate per-namespace dynamic configuration setting workercontroller.enabled does not gate the affected path. It defaults to false, and a deployment that has never set it in any namespace is still affected, which was confirmed by running an affected release with no value for that setting present anywhere in dynamic configuration. To look for a compute configuration that is already attached, call DescribeWorkerDeploymentVersion for each worker deployment version in each namespace and check whether any scaling group's compute provider type is subprocess.
Fix within
Internet-facing 14 days
Internal At next upgrade
  • Not known to be exploited
  • Needs hands-on effort to exploit
  • Gives an attacker full control
Severity
8.7 High
Exploitation
<1% chance of attack within 30 days
Type
CWE-78OS Command Injection
CWE-749Exposed Dangerous Method or Function
CWE-1188Initialization of a Resource with an Insecure Default
Timeline
Published21 Sep 2026
Updated11 Oct 2026
First seen21 Sep 2026
Sources
CVE-2026-89139 · MITRE
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