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Fencer Vulns
medium 6.5

CVE-2022-29220 json

No verification of commits origin in github-action-merge-dependabot

published 2022-05-31 4 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2022-33584

cvss
6.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 43%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

github-action-merge-dependabot is an action that automatically approves and merges dependabot pull requests (PRs). Prior to version 3.2.0, github-action-merge-dependabot does not check if a commit created by dependabot is verified with the proper GPG key. There is just a check if the actor is set to `dependabot[bot]` to determine if the PR is a legit PR. Theoretically, an owner of a seemingly valid and legit action in the pipeline can check if the PR is created by dependabot and if their own action has enough permissions to modify the PR in the pipeline. If so, they can modify the PR by adding a second seemingly valid and legit commit to the PR, as they can set arbitrarily the username and email in for commits in git. Because the bot only checks if the actor is valid, it would pass the malicious changes through and merge the PR automatically, without getting noticed by project maintainers. It would probably not be possible to determine where the malicious commit came from, as it would only say `dependabot[bot]` and the corresponding email-address. Version 3.2.0 contains a patch for this issue.

Patch / fix

  • fastify github_action_merge_dependabot 3.2.0

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
18 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.50% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 43% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
NVD 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
NVD 2.0 4.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:N

Affected products

  • fastify github-action-merge-dependabot

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-283 Unverified Ownership
  • CWE-345 Insufficient Verification of Data Authenticity

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.