CVE-2025-27613 Gitk can create and truncate files in the user's home directory
Gitk allows attackers to create or truncate files in the user's home directory via a malicious repository clone, requiring specific preference settings or UI interactions.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- A user has to click or open something
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2025-27613?
CVE-2025-27613 is a low-severity path traversal vulnerability in j6t gitk, published on 10 Jul 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Official description
Gitk is a Tcl/Tk based Git history browser. Starting with 1.7.0, when a user clones an untrusted repository and runs gitk without additional command arguments, files for which the user has write permission can be created and truncated. The option Support per-file encoding must have been enabled before in Gitk's Preferences. This option is disabled by default. The same happens when Show origin of this line is used in the main window (regardless of whether Support per-file encoding is enabled or not). This vulnerability is fixed in 2.43.7, 2.44.4, 2.45.4, 2.46.4, 2.47.3, 2.48.2, 2.49.1, and 2.50.1.
Weakness: CWE-78
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-27613?
How do I fix CVE-2025-27613?
Upgrade to a fixed version.
Upgrade, and resolve every user-supplied path against an allowed base folder before opening it. More about Path traversal.
Is CVE-2025-27613 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-27613 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as ALPINE-CVE-2025-27613, AZL-65073, AZL-65076, BELL-CVE-2025-27613, CLSA-2025-1754346021, CLSA-2025-1754381382 and 8 more.