Git Project Security Vulnerabilities Let Attackers Execute Arbitrary Code

A fresh set of Git releases was made available to fix several security flaws. It gives attackers the ability to execute arbitrary code upon successful exploitation. Upgrades are advised for all users.

View of the Most Recent Batch of Releases On GitHub

To resolve two security flaws that affected versions 2.40.0 and earlier, CVE-2023-25652 and CVE-2023-29007, the Git project issued new versions.

Additional Windows-specific vulnerabilities, CVE-2023-25815, CVE-2023-29011, and CVE-2023-29012, were also fixed in Git.

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Reports say new versions of the Git for Windows project were released with fixes for these five vulnerabilities.

“To protect against CVE-2023-25652 and CVE-2023-29007, users are encouraged to upgrade immediately”, GitHub reports.

With git apply –reject, the former may carry out controlled content writes at arbitrary paths.

The latter might be used to insert arbitrary configuration settings, which could execute arbitrary code.

The Windows-specific vulnerabilities affect users on multi-user computers, users working in Git CMD, and users using the SOCKS5 proxy connect.exe included in the Git for Windows distribution. Additionally, those who fit these categories are urged to upgrade immediately.

Upgrade To the Most Recent Git Release

GitHub suggests that the best defense against these vulnerabilities is an upgrade to Git 2.40.1. GitHub has taken severe measures to defend users from these attacks. Particularly,

• It has scheduled a GitHub Desktop update that stops the exploitation of this vulnerability for release on April 26th, 2023.
• Scheduled updates to upgrade the versions of Git used by GitHub Codespaces and GitHub Actions.

If you are unable to update right away, minimize your risk by doing the following:

• Avoid using git apply –reject when working with patches from untrusted sources. Use git apply –stat to inspect a patch before applying it.
• Avoid running git submodule deinit, git config –rename-section, and git config –remove-section on untrusted repositories or without prior inspection of your $GIT_DIR/config.

You can lower your risk on Windows by carrying out the following actions:

• Avoid using Git for Windows on machines with shared accounts. Otherwise, create empty C:\mingw64 and C:\etc folders, and remove any write permission on them.
• Avoid using Git CMD; if doing so is impossible, ensure it is started from a trusted directory.

“GitHub itself is not affected by these vulnerabilities. We do not use git apply –reject, nor Git’s configuration mechanism. GitHub does not use Git for Windows, and is thus not affected by those vulnerabilities, either”, GitHub said.

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