CVE-2020-5260
9.3 · CRITICALOverview
CVE-2020-5260 is a critical-severity vulnerability affecting git git. It was published on April 14, 2020 and has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.3 (CRITICAL).
This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.3, rated CRITICAL. It can be exploited remotely over the network. No authentication or special privileges are required for exploitation.
Technical Description
Affected versions of Git have a vulnerability whereby Git can be tricked into sending private credentials to a host controlled by an attacker. Git uses external "credential helper" programs to store and retrieve passwords or other credentials from secure storage provided by the operating system. Specially-crafted URLs that contain an encoded newline can inject unintended values into the credential helper protocol stream, causing the credential helper to retrieve the password for one server (e.g., good.example.com) for an HTTP request being made to another server (e.g., evil.example.com), resulting in credentials for the former being sent to the latter. There are no restrictions on the relationship between the two, meaning that an attacker can craft a URL that will present stored credentials for any host to a host of their choosing. The vulnerability can be triggered by feeding a malicious URL to git clone. However, the affected URLs look rather suspicious; the likely vector would be th
Remediation
Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from git. Update git to the latest patched version. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.
Affected Products
| Vendor | Product | Versions | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| git | git | >= 0, < 2.17.4 | Affected |
| git-scm | git | >= 2.18.0, < 2.18.3 | Affected |
References
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CVE-2020-5260?
CVE-2020-5260 is a critical-severity vulnerability affecting git git. It was published on April 14, 2020 and has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.3 (CRITICAL).
How severe is CVE-2020-5260?
This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.3, rated CRITICAL. It can be exploited remotely over the network. No authentication or special privileges are required for exploitation.
How do I fix or remediate CVE-2020-5260?
Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from git. Update git to the latest patched version. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.
How can CyberStrike help with CVE-2020-5260?
CyberStrike's AI-powered security agents can automatically detect CVE-2020-5260 across your infrastructure using autonomous pentesting, DAST scanning, and HackBrowser. The platform continuously monitors for known vulnerabilities and provides actionable remediation guidance prioritized by real-world exploitability.
How CyberStrike Helps
AI agents map your attack surface to find vulnerabilities like this one.
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