Cocos EngineApplication · Cocos

CVE-2023-26493

HIGH · 8.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2023-03-27
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 2023-02-20 or later.
See remediation →
94/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Public exploit Remotely reachable Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Cocos Engine is an open-source framework for building 2D & 3D real-time rendering and interactive content. In the github repo for Cocos Engine the `web-interface-check.yml` was subject to command injection. The `web-interface-check.yml` was triggered when a pull request was opened or updated and contained the user controllable field `(${{ github.head_ref }} – the name of the fork’s branch)`. This would allow an attacker to take over the GitHub Runner and run custom commands (potentially stealing secrets such as GITHUB_TOKEN) and altering the repository. The workflow has since been removed for the repository. There are no actions required of users.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-74

Untrusted input crosses into a downstream interpreter — SQL, a shell, an HTML page, an LDAP query — without being kept separate from the commands around it, so the attacker's data is read as instructions. This is the parent class behind SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and command injection alike. The durable fix is the same everywhere: keep data and code apart at every boundary, using parameterisation or context-aware encoding rather than building interpreted strings by concatenation.

General guidance for the injection class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Cocos EngineApplication
Affected:< 2023-02-20

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 2023-02-20 or later
Fixed in 2023-02-20
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence
  1. 1. Review any forks or copies of the Cocos Engine repository for the presence of the `web-interface-check.yml` workflow file in the `.github/workflows/` directory.
  2. 2. If the vulnerable workflow exists, either remove it entirely (as the vendor did) or sanitize the `github.head_ref` input before using it in shell commands.
  3. 3. When sanitizing, ensure branch names are validated against a safe allowlist pattern or properly escaped to prevent command injection.
  4. 4. Verify no other workflows use unsanitized `github.head_ref` or similar user-controllable GitHub context variables in shell commands.

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2023-26493 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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What belongs here
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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