# CVE-2020-5260: malicious URLs may cause Git to present stored credentials to the wrong server > Attackers can trick Git into sending stored credentials to a malicious server via crafted URLs, exposing sensitive authentication data. - **Severity:** Critical 9.3 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N`) - **Exploited in the wild:** Not known - **Login needed:** Not needed - **Attackable:** Over the internet - **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something - **Fix available:** Yes - **Published:** 14 Apr 2020 - **Updated:** 4 Aug 2024 - **Also known as:** ALPINE-CVE-2020-5260, BIT-git-2020-5260, CLEANSTART-2025-KZ78895, DEBIAN-CVE-2020-5260, DLA-2177-1, DSA-4657-1, GHSA-qm7j-c969-7j4q, MGASA-2020-0175, RHSA-2020:1503, RHSA-2020:1511, RHSA-2020:1513, RHSA-2020:1518, SUSE-SU-2020:0991-1, SUSE-SU-2020:0992-1, UBUNTU-CVE-2020-5260, USN-4329-1, openSUSE-SU-2020:0524-1 ## What is CVE-2020-5260? CVE-2020-5260 is a critical vulnerability in Canonical Ubuntu Linux, published on 14 Apr 2020. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link. ### Official 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 through systems which automatically clone URLs not visible to the user, such as Git submodules, or package systems built around Git. The problem has been patched in the versions published on April 14th, 2020, going back to v2.17.x. Anyone wishing to backport the change further can do so by applying commit 9a6bbee (the full release includes extra checks for git fsck, but that commit is sufficient to protect clients against the vulnerability). The patched versions are: 2.17.4, 2.18.3, 2.19.4, 2.20.3, 2.21.2, 2.22.3, 2.23.2, 2.24.2, 2.25.3, 2.26.1. Weakness: CWE-522 (Insufficiently Protected Credentials), CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation) ## Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-5260? 1 open source package ship an affected version, including git. It affects 6 products. | Package | Ecosystem | Affected | Fixed in | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | `git` | Bitnami | All versions | 2.17.4, 2.22.3 | | `emacs-git` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `emacs-git-el` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-all` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-bzr` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-cvs` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-daemon` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-debuginfo` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-email` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-gnome-keyring` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-gui` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-hg` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-instaweb` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-p4` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-svn` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `gitk` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `gitweb` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `perl-Git` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `perl-Git-SVN` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::client | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `emacs-git` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `emacs-git-el` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-all` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-bzr` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-cvs` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-daemon` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-debuginfo` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-email` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-gnome-keyring` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-gui` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-hg` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-instaweb` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-p4` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `git-svn` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `gitk` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `gitweb` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `perl-Git` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `perl-Git-SVN` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::computenode | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | | `emacs-git` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::server | All versions | 0:1.8.3.1-22.el7_8 | Products: Canonical Ubuntu Linux, Debian Debian Linux, Fedoraproject Fedora, Git-Scm Git, Git Git, Opensuse Leap. ## How do I fix CVE-2020-5260? Upgrade git to a fixed version for your release line: 2.17.4 or 2.22.3. ## Is CVE-2020-5260 being exploited? There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-5260 in the wild and no public exploit code. Public exploit code: - A HTTP PoC Endpoint for cve-2020-5260 which can be deployed to Heroku (github_poc): https://github.com/brompwnie/cve-2020-5260 - CVE-2020-5260演示记录 (github_poc): https://github.com/sv3nbeast/CVE-2020-5260 - https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/detail?id=2021 (github_poc): https://github.com/Asgavar/CVE-2020-5260 ## Other vulnerabilities in Canonical Ubuntu Linux - [CVE-2020-11651](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-11651/): SaltStack Salt Authentication Bypass (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild) - [CVE-2020-7247](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-7247/): OpenSMTPD Remote Code Execution (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild) - [CVE-2019-16928](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-16928/): Exim Out-of-bounds Write (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild) - [CVE-2018-6789](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-6789/): Exim Buffer Overflow (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild) - [CVE-2015-2590](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-2590/): Oracle Java SE and Java SE Embedded Remote Code Execution (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild) ## Fix prompt for AI coding agents ```text Check this codebase for CVE-2020-5260 and fix it if it is affected. What it is: CVE-2020-5260 is a critical vulnerability in Canonical Ubuntu Linux, published on 14 Apr 2020. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link. Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-5260 in the wild and no public exploit code. Affected packages and fixed versions: - git (Bitnami): affected all versions; fixed in 2.17.4, 2.22.3 Task: 1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies. 2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it. 3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead. 4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why. 5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing. Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-5260/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-5260/index.md) ``` ## Sources - CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-5260 - NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-5260 - OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-5260 --- From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-5260/ Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.