Adversaries may manipulate continuous integration / continuous development (CI/CD) processes by injecting malicious code into the build process. There are several mechanisms for poisoning pipelines:

• In a Direct Pipeline Execution scenario, the threat actor directly modifies the CI configuration file (e.g., gitlab-ci.yml in GitLab). They may include a command to exfiltrate credentials leveraged in the build process to a remote server, or to export them as a workflow artifact.^[1],[2]
• In an Indirect Pipeline Execution scenario, the threat actor injects malicious code into files referenced by the CI configuration file. These may include makefiles, scripts, unit tests, and linters.^[2]
• In a Public Pipeline Execution scenario, the threat actor does not have direct access to the repository but instead creates a malicious pull request from a fork that triggers a part of the CI/CD pipeline. For example, in GitHub Actions, the pull_request_target trigger allows workflows running from forked repositories to access secrets. If this trigger is combined with an explicit pull request checkout and a location for a threat actor to insert malicious code (e.g., an npm build command), a threat actor may be able to leak pipeline credentials.^[1],[3] Similarly, threat actors may craft pull requests with malicious inputs (such as branch names) if the build pipeline treats those inputs as trusted.^[4],[5],[6] Finally, if a pipeline leverages a self-hosted runner, a threat actor may be able to execute arbitrary code on a host inside the organization’s network.^[7]

By poisoning CI/CD pipelines, threat actors may be able to gain access to credentials, laterally move to additional hosts, or input malicious components to be shipped further down the pipeline (i.e., Supply Chain Compromise).

References

1. Omer Gilm Aviad Hahami, Asi Greenholts, and Yaron Avital. (2025, March 20). GitHub Actions Supply Chain Attack: A Targeted Attack on Coinbase Expanded to the Widespread tj-actions/changed-files Incident: Threat Assessment . Retrieved May 22, 2025.
2. OWASP. (n.d.). CICD-SEC-4: Poisoned Pipeline Execution (PPE). Retrieved May 22, 2025.
3. Jaroslav Lobačevski. (2021, August 3). Keeping your GitHub Actions and workflows secure Part 1: Preventing pwn requests. Retrieved May 22, 2025.
4. Wiz Threat Research. (2024, December 9). Ultralytics AI Library Hacked via GitHub for Cryptomining. Retrieved May 22, 2025.
5. Hugo Vincent. (2024, May 22). Hijacking GitHub runners to compromise the organization. Retrieved May 22, 2025.
6. Jaroslav Lobačevski. (2021, August 4). Keeping your GitHub Actions and workflows secure Part 2: Untrusted input. Retrieved May 22, 2025.
7. John Stawinski IV. (2024, January 11). Playing with Fire – How We Executed a Critical Supply Chain Attack on PyTorch. Retrieved May 22, 2025.

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