Medium

hermes's raw options logging may disclose secrets passed in via subcommand options argument

  • Disclosed: 13.01.2026
  • Updated: 11.10.2026 13:18

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 software

Click a technology to see all vulnerabilities affecting it.

PlatformPackageVulnerable versionsFixed in
Python (PyPI) hermes >= 0.8.1, < 0.9.1 0.9.1

References

CVSS score 5.9/10
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:N
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-532
Platform
Python (PyPI)
Package
hermes
Disclosed
13.01.2026
Updated
11.10.2026 13:18

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - PYSEC-2026-1449 - PyPA Advisory Database; CC BY 4.0

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-jm5j-jfrm-hm23 - CC BY 4.0

Vulnerability history: hermes

All published vulnerabilities of this package (Python (PyPI)), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.

This is the only known vulnerability of this package.

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