CVE-2022-29220 - CVE House
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Status published Medium CVE-2022-29220

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

Vulnerability Description

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.

Impact Analysis

Refer to official advisory for detailed impact metrics.

Remediation

Ensure systems are updated to the latest vendor-supplied patch levels.

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Credits & Attribution

No credits recorded in the NVD database.

Affected Vendor

Affected Software

github-action-merge-dependabot
Vulnerable Versions:
< 3.2.0

Timeline

Official Publish: May 31st, 2022
Last Modified: April 23rd, 2025
Added to House: July 21st, 2026

CVSS Vectors

V3: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Weaknesses (CWE)

MITRE ATT&CK TTPs

No associated TTPs found for this vulnerability.