CVE-2023-30623 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) CWE-77 vulnerability in embano1/wip. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for embano1/wip — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Arbitrary command injection in embano1/wip
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2023-30623.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
embano1/wipReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects GitHub Actions packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Summary
The embano1/wip action uses the github.event.pull_request.title parameter in an insecure way. The title parameter is used in a run statement - resulting in a command injection vulnerability due to string interpolation.
Details and Impact
This vulnerability can be triggered by any user on GitHub. They just need to create a pull request with a commit message containing an exploit. (Note that first-time PR requests will not be run - but the attacker can submit a valid PR before submitting an invalid PR). The commit can be genuine, but the commit message can be malicious.
This can be used to execute code on the GitHub runners (potentially use it for crypto-mining, and waste your resources) and can be used to exfiltrate any secrets that you use in the CI pipeline (including repository tokens). Here is a set of blog posts by Github's security team explaining this issue.
How to update existing workflows
Replace the following line in your workflow using this action with the v2 branch name or commit pointing to this branch:
uses: embano1/wip@v2
Or using the exact commit:
uses: embano1/wip@c25450f77ed02c20d00b76ee3b33ff43838739a2 # v2
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦GitHub Actions | embano1/wip | all versions | 2 |
Affected Products
wipwip_projectResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for embano1/wip, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update embano1/wip to 2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-30623 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-30623 in your dependencies?
Find it across GitHub Actions, including transitive dependencies.