Hermes Agent < 0.16.0 - Sensitive File Permission Vulnerability in Store Files

A local attacker with filesystem access to the machine running Hermes Agent can read `response_store.db` and `webhook_subscriptions.json` directly because both files are created with mode `0o644` (world-readable). No authentication or special privileges are required beyond local user access to the filesystem. The attacker can extract conversation history, tool payloads, prompts, and per-route HMAC secrets from these files. [CWE-276]

The vulnerability is in the Hermes Agent state management layer, which creates `response_store.db` and `webhook_subscriptions.json` with world-readable permissions (mode `0o644`). These files are written by the core state persistence code that the patches target.

The patches [patch_id=6466850] [patch_id=6466849] restrict the file permissions on `response_store.db` and `webhook_subscriptions.json` so they are no longer world-readable. The exact mode applied is not shown in the truncated diff, but the fix ensures that only the owning user (and potentially the owning group) can read these sensitive files, preventing local unprivileged users from accessing conversation history, tool payloads, prompts, and HMAC secrets.