CVE-2026-48501 GitHub CLI tokens leak via `gh attestation` commands
GitHub CLI leaks user authentication tokens to external TUF mirrors and storage hosts due to flawed host detection in attestation commands.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-48501?
CVE-2026-48501 is a high-severity vulnerability in cli, published on 29 May 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
GitHub CLI (gh) is GitHub’s official command line tool. Prior to 2.93.0, GitHub CLI incorrectly includes authorization header in API requests to TUF repository mirrors via gh attestation, gh release verify, and gh release verify-asset commands. The CLI uses a shared HTTP client with an authentication layer that automatically attaches tokens to outgoing requests. This layer lacks accurate host detection and can incorrectly attribute the target host, providing it with a token it should never receive. Specifically, the host normalization logic collapses any *.github.com subdomain to github.com, so a request to tuf-repo.github.com (a GitHub Pages site, not a GitHub API endpoint) is treated as a request to github.com and receives the user's github.com token. For hosts that don't match github.com or a known GHES instance at all, the resolver falls back to GH_ENTERPRISE_TOKEN if set. The gh attestation, gh release verify and gh release verify-asset commands fetch data from several external hosts as part of their normal operation (TUF metadata from tuf-repo.github.com and tuf-repo-cdn.sigstore.dev, artifact bundles from Azure Blob Storage). Because these requests go through the same authenticated HTTP client, the token is sent to all of them. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.93.0.
Weakness: CWE-863
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-48501?
4 open source packages ship an affected version, including github.com/cli/cli/v2 and github.com/cli/cli. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
github.com/cli/cli/v2 Go | All versions | 2.93.0 |
github.com/cli/cli/v2 Go | All versions | 2.93.0 |
github.com/cli/cli/v2 Go | All versions | 2.93.0 |
github.com/cli/cli Go | All versions | None |
Products include Github Cli.
How do I fix CVE-2026-48501?
Upgrade github.com/cli/cli/v2 to 2.93.0 or later.
Is CVE-2026-48501 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-48501 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in cli
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2026-48501, GHSA-8xvp-7hj6-mcj9, GO-2026-5271.