In brief: Agent-driven GitHub workflows can be manipulated through crafted public issues to unauthorisedly disclose private repositories of the enterprise when the agent has organisation-wide read access.
Researchers from Noma Security demonstrate that agent-driven GitHub workflows can be lured into leaking private repository contents through manipulated public issues — without the attacker needing credentials or direct access.
Noma Security identified a trust vulnerability in agent-driven workflows on GitHub that can be exploited via public issues. An attacker need only open an inconspicuous issue in a public repository — without stolen credentials and without access to the affected organisation. However, if the organisation’s agent has read access to multiple or all repositories, it will be prompted to process the maliciously formatted issue.
The mechanism exploits the fact that agent-driven workflows automatically respond to public issues and thereby use the agent’s access privileges. Through clever wording or structured data in the public issue, the agent can be induced to access private repositories and disclose their contents — such as configurations, secrets, or source code — in responses or logs.
For CISOs, this means that the granting of write or read access for automated agents must be critically reassessed. Organisation-wide or cross-repository permissions for agents are particularly risky, since a single publicly accessible issue can serve as an entry point. It is recommended to provision agents according to the principle of least privilege, meaning granting access exclusively to the specific repositories they require, as well as reviewing the output and logging of agent-driven workflows for sensitive data.
Source: thehackernews.com · Published 7 July 2026
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