A set of three distinct however associated assaults, dubbed ‘Clone2Leak,’ can leak credentials by exploiting how Git and its credential helpers deal with authentication requests.
The assault can compromise passwords and entry tokens in GitHub Desktop, Git LFS, GitHub CLI/Codespaces, and the Git Credential Supervisor.
The issues that make ‘Clone2Leak’ attainable have been found by Japanese researcher RyotaK of GMO Flatt Safety, who reported them responsibly to the affected tasks.
Safety updates addressing all flaws have been made out there, and impacted customers are urged to make sure they’re working a secure launch to mitigate the danger of getting their secrets and techniques leaked.
Clone2Leak assaults
Every of the failings found by RyotaK revolves round improper parsing of authentication requests made to credential helpers, permitting an attacker to trick Git into leaking saved credentials to a malicious server.
Credential helpers are instruments that retailer and retrieve authentication credentials for when Git interacts with distant repositories, serving to keep away from repeatedly getting into credentials for each Git operation.
Attackers can trick Git into leaking saved credentials when a consumer clones or interacts with a malicious repository.
Right here is an summary of the 3 ways the Clone2Leak assault can manifest by exploiting varied flaws:
- Carriage return smuggling (CVE-2025-23040 and CVE-2024-50338) – GitHub Desktop and Git Credential Supervisor misread carriage return (r) characters in URLs. A malicious submodule URL with %0D tips the credential helper into sending GitHub credentials to an attacker-controlled server as a substitute of the meant host.
- Newline injection (CVE-2024-53263) – Git LFS improperly permits newline (n) characters in .lfsconfig information, bypassing Git’s safety. Attackers can alter credential requests in order that Git returns GitHub credentials to a malicious server as a substitute of the proper one.
- Logic flaws in credential retrieval (CVE-2024-53858) – GitHub CLI and GitHub Codespaces had overly permissive credential helpers that despatched authentication tokens to unintended hosts. Attackers might steal GitHub entry tokens by getting a consumer to clone a malicious repository inside Codespaces.
All vulnerabilities talked about above have now been patched, however customers ought to guarantee their instruments are up to date, audit credential configurations, and be cautious when cloning repositories.
The secure variations to improve to are GitHub Desktop 3.4.12 or newer, Git Credential Supervisor 2.6.1 or newer, Git LFS 3.6.1 or later, and gh cli 2.63.0 or later.
Moreover, it is strongly recommended that Git’s ‘credential.protectProtocol’ be enabled as an additional layer of protection in opposition to credential smuggling assaults.
Flatt Safety’s report doesn’t point out lively exploitation within the wild, however with the main points now public, the danger of assaults is elevated.
