CVE-2026-72861: Appwrite Templates github-issue-bot Skips Webhook Signature Verification When the X-Hub-Signature-256 Header Is Absent

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-08-20 · updated 2026-10-18
Weakness: CWE-347

Description

The github-issue-bot templates in appwrite/templates verify the GitHub webhook signature with an inverted condition. verifyWebhook in node/github-issue-bot/src/github.js and in node-typescript/github-issue-bot/src/github.ts returns "typeof signature !== 'string' || (await verify(...))", so when the X-Hub-Signature-256 header is absent the first operand is true, the logical OR short-circuits, and the function reports success without performing any HMAC verification. main.js rejects a request only when verifyWebhook returns false, so an unauthenticated request carrying no signature passes the check. Processing then continues to postComment, which takes the repository and issue objects directly from the request body, letting the caller direct the deployed function to post a comment on a repository and issue of their choosing using the configured GITHUB_TOKEN, with the issue author login from the body interpolated into the comment text.

Affected products

appwrite templates: through 1.1.2

References

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