Windows users at highest risk from security bugs in software development tool
It’s time for developers to update their local Git installations following the discovery of a brace of vulnerabilities.
The worst of the two flaws (CVE-2022-24765) carries the potential of allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary commands.
Developers using Git for Windows or Git on a multi-user machine are most at risk, as an advisory by GitHub explains:
This vulnerability affects users working on multi-user machines where a malicious actor could create a .git directory in a shared location above a victim’s current working directory. On Windows, for example, an attacker could create C:\.git\config, which would cause all git invocations that occur outside of a repository to read its configured values.
Since some configuration variables (such as core.fsmonitor) cause Git to execute arbitrary commands, this can lead to arbitrary command execution when working on a shared machine.”
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Software developers are advised to upgrade their systems to Git v2.35.2 in order to guard against potential attacks, which would rely on an attacker first gaining write access on a targeted system.
Developers who use Git on Linux or macOS are also affected by the CVE-2022-24765 flaw, albeit to a lesser extent. Patching in all cases is the recommended course of action but short of this, various mitigations are available, as detailed in GitHub’s advisory.
A second vulnerability (CVE-2022-24767) is limited to the Git for Windows uninstaller. As with the previous flaw, some level of compromised access is a prerequisite to potential attacks, as GitHub’s advisory explains.
Attacks would rely on planting malicious .dll files on a targeted system.
Users are advised to update to Git for Windows v2.35.2 but, again, a number of temporary mitigations offer a viable alternative.
Credit for discovering the vulnerability was given to Lockheed Martin’s red team.
GitHub offers a centralized location for Git repositories, hence its role in flagging up the requirement for software updates.
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