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OpenAdvisories
Medium · 6.5 CVE-2024-53858 EUVD-2024-3397GHSA-jwcm-9g39-pmcwGO-2024-3296

Recursive repository cloning can leak authentication tokens to non-GitHub submodule hosts in the gh cli

Published Nov 27, 2024 · Updated Dec 3, 2024 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

The gh cli is GitHub’s official command line tool. A security vulnerability has been identified in the GitHub CLI that could leak authentication tokens when cloning repositories containing `git` submodules hosted outside of GitHub.com and ghe.com. This vulnerability stems from several `gh` commands used to clone a repository with submodules from a non-GitHub host including `gh repo clone`, `gh repo fork`, and `gh pr checkout`. These GitHub CLI commands invoke git with instructions to retrieve authentication tokens using the `credential.helper` configuration variable for any host encountered. Prior to version `2.63.0`, hosts other than GitHub.com and ghe.com are treated as GitHub Enterprise Server hosts and have tokens sourced from the following environment variables before falling back to host-specific tokens stored within system-specific secured storage: 1. `GITHUB_ENTERPRISE_TOKEN`, 2. `GH_ENTERPRISE_TOKEN` and 3. `GITHUB_TOKEN` when the `CODESPACES` environment variable is set. The result being `git` sending authentication tokens when cloning submodules. In version `2.63.0`, these GitHub CLI commands will limit the hosts for which `gh` acts as a credential helper to source authentication tokens. Additionally, `GITHUB_TOKEN` will only be used for GitHub.com and ghe.com. Users are advised to upgrade. Additionally users are advised to revoke authentication tokens used with the GitHub CLI and to review their personal security log and any relevant audit logs for actions associated with their account or enterprise

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
cli cli < 2.63.0 —

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian 13 gh 2.46.0-3 —
Debian 12 gh No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu Pro 24.04 LTS gh 2.45.0-1ubuntu0.3+esm2 USN-8012-1
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
openSUSE Tumbleweed govulncheck-vulndb 0.0.20241209T183251-1.1 openSUSE-SU-2024:14567-1

Azure Linux

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Azure Linux 3 gh 2.62.0-5 —
Azure Linux 2 (CBL-Mariner) gh 2.13.0-24 —

Wolfi

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Wolfi rolling gh 2.63.0-r0 —

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
Go github.com/cli/cli all versions — GO-2024-3296
Go github.com/cli/cli/v2 < 2.63.0 2.63.0 GHSA-jwcm-9g39-pmcw

Advisories 2

References