GHSA-5m98-cgcr-xx3q
GHSA-5m98-cgcr-xx3q is a CWE-347 vulnerability in n8n. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-5m98-cgcr-xx3q is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
n8n: GitHub Trigger 422 Reuse Path Skips Webhook Secret Storage, Causing Signature Verification to Fail-Open
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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 GHSA-5m98-cgcr-xx3q.
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
n8nnpmDescription
Impact
The GitHub Trigger generated a signing secret when it registered a webhook and verified X-Hub-Signature-256 on each delivery. When GitHub answered the create request with a 422 because a webhook for the URL already existed, the node adopted the remote hook but kept only its id and events, discarding the secret it had generated. Deliveries to that workflow's webhook URL were then accepted from anyone. The patch re-fetches the existing hook by its stored id, re-applies the signing secret, and makes verification fail closed when no secret is stored.
Patches
The issue has been fixed in n8n versions 1.123.76, 2.37.7, and 2.38.2. Users should upgrade to one of these versions or later to remediate the vulnerability.
Workarounds
If upgrading is not immediately possible, administrators should consider the following temporary mitigations:
- Deactivate and reactivate any GitHub Trigger workflows to force a fresh webhook registration with a new secret, provided the remote GitHub hook has been deleted first so that the 422 reuse path is not taken again.
- Restrict network access to the n8n webhook endpoint to GitHub's published IP ranges only.
- Audit GitHub Trigger workflow static data for entries that contain a
webhookIdbut nowebhookSecret, and treat those workflows as unprotected until reactivated successfully.
These workarounds do not fully remediate the risk and should only be used as short-term mitigation measures.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | n8n | all versions | 1.123.76 |
| 📦npm | n8n | ≥ 2.38.0&&< 2.38.2 | 2.38.2 |
| 📦npm | n8n | ≥ 2.0.0&&< 2.37.7 | 2.37.7 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for n8n. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update n8n to 1.123.76 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-5m98-cgcr-xx3q is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether GHSA-5m98-cgcr-xx3q is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to GHSA-5m98-cgcr-xx3q. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-5m98-cgcr-xx3q in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-5m98-cgcr-xx3q across npm dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.