Security researchers at Praetorian have disclosed a class of Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) attacks that could have allowed attackers to inject malicious code into the PyTorch repository, potentially leading to a massive supply chain compromise. The attack method targets GitHub repositories with self-hosted runners attached and allows attackers to execute arbitrary code without requiring approval. Researchers discovered that PyTorch used self-hosted runners that did not require workflow approval for fork pull requests from previous contributors, enabling attackers to gain access and maintain persistence. The researchers identified thousands of other GitHub repositories prone to the same attack and reported the vulnerability to Meta, which awarded a $5,000 bug bounty reward. The mitigation involves using isolated, ephemeral self-hosted runners and requiring approval for all pull requests from outside contributors.
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