MediumCVE-2022-39253

    Git subject to exposure of sensitive information via local clone of symbolic links (CVE-2022-39253)

    Published Sources: Debian, CVE.org

    What is affected, what to do

    Git is an open source, scalable, distributed revision control system. Versions prior to 2.30.6, 2.31.5, 2.32.4, 2.33.5, 2.34.5, 2.35.5, 2.36.3, and 2.37.4 are subject to exposure of sensitive information to a malicious actor.

    Update Git to version 2.30.6, Git to version 2.31.5, Git to version 2.32.4.

    Affected
    • Git lt *..2.30.6
    • Git lt *..2.31.5
    • Git lt *..2.32.4
    • Git lt *..2.33.5
    • Git lt *..2.34.5
    • Git lt *..2.35.5
    • Git lt *..2.36.3
    • Git lt *..2.37.4
    Fixed in
    • Git 2.30.6
    • Git 2.31.5
    • Git 2.32.4
    • Git 2.33.5
    • Git 2.34.5
    • Git 2.35.5
    • Git 2.36.3
    • Git 2.37.4

    Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability

    Metrics

    5.5

    Priority

    XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.

    Source: NVD, CVSS v3

    5.5

    CVSS v3

    Severity Medium on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: Debian, CVE.org

    1.5 %

    EPSS score

    Moderate — model estimates 1-10% exploitation likelihood.

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 73.8

    Show all metrics
    Severity
    Medium
    Priority (0–325)

    The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?

    Read in glossary
    72.61 Methodology
    Exploit maturity

    An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.

    Read in glossary
    no public PoC known
    XIEM Effective CVSS

    XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.

    Read in glossary
    5.5 Methodology
    CVSS v3

    CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.

    Read in glossary
    5.5
    EPSS score

    The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.

    Read in glossary
    1.5 %
    Moderate — model estimates 1-10% exploitation likelihood.
    EPSS percentile

    The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.

    Read in glossary
    73.8
    High — this CVE ranks above the median of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 36%).
    KEV status

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    —
    Published
    CWE

    CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.

    Read in glossary
    CWE-200

    Detection rules

    No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.

    Classification under NIS2 and CRA

    Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.

    NIS2

    NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.

    Read in glossary
    Handle the vulnerability in regular vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2.
    CRA

    The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.

    Read in glossary
    From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
    ISO/IEC 27001

    ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.

    Read in glossary
    Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.

    Description

    Git is an open source, scalable, distributed revision control system. Versions prior to 2.30.6, 2.31.5, 2.32.4, 2.33.5, 2.34.5, 2.35.5, 2.36.3, and 2.37.4 are subject to exposure of sensitive information to a malicious actor. When performing a local clone (where the source and target of the clone are on the same volume), Git copies the contents of the source's `$GIT_DIR/objects` directory into the destination by either creating hardlinks to the source contents, or copying them (if hardlinks are disabled via `--no-hardlinks`). A malicious actor could convince a victim to clone a repository with a symbolic link pointing at sensitive information on the victim's machine. This can be done either by having the victim clone a malicious repository on the same machine, or having them clone a malicious repository embedded as a bare repository via a submodule from any source, provided they clone with the `--recurse-submodules` option. Git does not create symbolic links in the `$GIT_DIR/objects` directory. The problem has been patched in the versions published on 2022-10-18, and backported to v2.30.x. Potential workarounds: Avoid cloning untrusted repositories using the `--local` optimization when on a shared machine, either by passing the `--no-local` option to `git clone` or cloning from a URL that uses the `file://` scheme. Alternatively, avoid cloning repositories from untrusted sources with `--recurse-submodules` or run `git config --global protocol.file.allow user`.

    Source: Debian Security Advisories, NVD (NIST), cvelistv5

    Affected products

    The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.

    Affected products
    Affected versionsFixed in
    gitgit
    • < 2.31.5
    • < 2.36.3
    • < 2.33.5
    • < 2.34.5
    • < 2.32.4
    • < 2.30.6
    • < 2.35.5
    • < 2.37.4
    • 2.31.5
    • 2.36.3
    • 2.33.5
    • 2.34.5
    • 2.32.4
    • 2.30.6
    • 2.35.5
    • 2.37.4
    applexcode
    • < 14.1
    • 14.1
    git-scmgit
    • 2.32.0 – < 2.32.4
    • 2.38.0
    • 2.35.0 – < 2.35.5
    • 2.31.0 – < 2.31.5
    • 2.33.0 – < 2.33.5
    • < 2.30.6
    • 2.36.0 – < 2.36.3
    • 2.37.0 – < 2.37.4
    • 2.34.0 – < 2.34.5
    • 2.32.4
    • —
    • 2.35.5
    • 2.31.5
    • 2.33.5
    • 2.30.6
    • 2.36.3
    • 2.37.4
    • 2.34.5

    Vendors and products

    Affected operating systems

    Affected operating systems
    Linuxdebiandebian_linux10.0
    Linuxdebiangitbullseye
    Otherfedoraprojectfedora35
    Otherfedoraprojectfedora36
    Otherfedoraprojectfedora37

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-200Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor

      Class

      The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-200

    References & sources

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