Summary

Unblock the RC release vulnerability scan, which failed on two images, and pick up routine Go dependency patch releases.

Motivation / Context

The Publish / on-tag release run reported HIGH+ findings on two images:

• aiperf-bench — the release scan step in on-tag.yaml omitted the vex: .openvex.json input that the daily vuln-scan-images.yaml already passes, so the three pillow/python CVEs already declared not_affected re-fired.
• aicr-gate — all 39 HIGH+ findings live in the embedded, prebuilt kyverno/chainsaw binary (v0.2.15, the latest release), not the AICR gate binary, which already ships Go 1.26.4, x/crypto v0.53.0, x/net v0.56.0. No newer chainsaw release exists to bump to.

Fixes: N/A
Related: https://github.com/NVIDIA/aicr/actions/runs/27553891861

Type of Change

• Bug fix (non-breaking change that fixes an issue)
• Build/CI/tooling

Component(s) Affected

• Other: release CI (on-tag.yaml), supply-chain (.openvex.json), dependencies

Implementation Notes

Commit 1 — fix(ci):

• Add vex: .openvex.json to the on-tag.yaml image scan step (mirrors vuln-scan-images.yaml).
• Add 38 OpenVEX statements for the chainsaw CVEs under product pkg:oci/aicr-gate (title label == registry basename, so one PURL suffices):
  • 9 golang.org/x/crypto/ssh* — chainsaw never establishes SSH connections.
  • 4 cmd/compile / cmd/go — build-toolchain only, vulnerable_code_not_present in the runtime binary.
  • remainder crypto/x509, crypto/tls, net, net/url, net/mail, mime, x/net/idna, HTTP/2 client — reachable only with attacker-controlled input; chainsaw runs as an ephemeral, cluster-internal readiness-gate Job talking only to the trusted in-cluster API server.

Commit 2 — chore(deps): make upgrade (k8s 1.36.2, go-openapi/spec, httpsnoop, x/exp, x/tools). Independent of the scan fix; included here for convenience.

Testing

# grype v0.110.0 (the scan-action pin), CI-equivalent flags
grype <image> --only-fixed -c .grype.yaml --vex .openvex.json -o json
#   aicr-gate:     39 high+ without VEX -> 0 with VEX (39 suppressed, namespace=vex)
#   aiperf-bench:  0 high+

GOFLAGS="-mod=vendor" go build ./...   # ok
go mod verify                          # all modules verified

Risk Assessment

• Low — CI/supply-chain config + VEX evidence; dep bump is patch-level and builds clean. Easy to revert.

Rollout notes: The published aicr-gate:v0.15.0-rc1 image is unchanged; this only affects how the scan evaluates it. The VEX statements should be revisited (and dropped) once kyverno ships a chainsaw release rebuilt against patched deps.

Checklist

• Tests pass locally — go build ./... + go mod verify clean (no AICR source changed)
• Linter passes (make lint)
• I did not skip/disable tests to make CI green
• I updated docs if user-facing behavior changed — N/A
• Changes follow existing patterns in the codebase (.openvex.json schema, vuln-scan-images.yaml)
• Commits are cryptographically signed (git commit -S)