GHSA-jm5j-jfrm-hm23 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.9) CWE-532 vulnerability in hermes. A fix is available for hermes — see the affected versions and patch details below.
hermes's raw options logging may disclose secrets passed in via subcommand options argument
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-jm5j-jfrm-hm23.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-jm5j-jfrm-hm23 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 378,567 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
hermesReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Thanks, @thunze for reporting this!
hermes subcommands take arbitrary options under the -O argument. These have been logged in raw form since https://github.com/softwarepub/hermes/commit/7f64f102e916c76dc44404b77ab2a80f5a4e59b1 in: https://github.com/softwarepub/hermes/blob/3a92f42b2b976fdbc2c49a621de6d665364a7cee/src/hermes/commands/cli.py#L66
If users provide sensitive data such as API tokens (e.g., via hermes deposit -O invenio_rdm.auth_token SECRET), these are written to the log file in plain text, making them available to whoever can access the log file.
Impact
As currently, hermes.log is not yet uploaded automatically as an artifact in CI, this vuln impacts:
- local users working on shared access computers, where logs may be written to a commonly accessible file system
- CI users whose CI logs are accessible to others, e.g., through group or organization rights
Potentially, if the changes merged from https://github.com/softwarepub/ci-templates/pull/13 are merged into ci-templates via https://github.com/softwarepub/ci-templates/pull/14, this would automate the disclosure of Invenio auth tokens at least for all CI runs against Invenio instances!
Patches
This has been patched in hermes 0.9.1 by masking all values passed using -O.
Workarounds
Upgrade to hermes >= 0.9.1.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | hermes | ≥ 0.8.1&&< 0.9.1 | 0.9.1pip install --upgrade 'hermes==0.9.1' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for hermes, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update hermes to 0.9.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-jm5j-jfrm-hm23 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 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like GHSA-jm5j-jfrm-hm23 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-jm5j-jfrm-hm23. 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-jm5j-jfrm-hm23 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-jm5j-jfrm-hm23 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.