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Fencer Vulns
medium 6.5

CVE-2024-53858 json

Recursive repository cloning can leak authentication tokens to non-GitHub submodule hosts in the gh cli

published 2024-11-27 23 mo ago modified 2026-09-10 1 mo ago also EUVD-2024-3397 , GHSA-jwcm-9g39-pmcw , GO-2024-3296

cvss
6.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 20%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The gh cli is GitHub’s official command line tool. A security vulnerability has been identified in the GitHub CLI that could leak authentication tokens when cloning repositories containing `git` submodules hosted outside of GitHub.com and ghe.com. This vulnerability stems from several `gh` commands used to clone a repository with submodules from a non-GitHub host including `gh repo clone`, `gh repo fork`, and `gh pr checkout`. These GitHub CLI commands invoke git with instructions to retrieve authentication tokens using the `credential.helper` configuration variable for any host encountered. Prior to version `2.63.0`, hosts other than GitHub.com and ghe.com are treated as GitHub Enterprise Server hosts and have tokens sourced from the following environment variables before falling back to host-specific tokens stored within system-specific secured storage: 1. `GITHUB_ENTERPRISE_TOKEN`, 2. `GH_ENTERPRISE_TOKEN` and 3. `GITHUB_TOKEN` when the `CODESPACES` environment variable is set. The result being `git` sending authentication tokens when cloning submodules. In version `2.63.0`, these GitHub CLI commands will limit the hosts for which `gh` acts as a credential helper to source authentication tokens. Additionally, `GITHUB_TOKEN` will only be used for GitHub.com and ghe.com. Users are advised to upgrade. Additionally users are advised to revoke authentication tokens used with the GitHub CLI and to review their personal security log and any relevant audit logs for actions associated with their account or enterprise

Patch / fix

  • go github.com/cli/cli/v2 2.63.0
  • github cli 2.63.0
  • gh Debian 13 2.46.0-3

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2024-53858

  • gh Ubuntu Pro 24.04 LTS 2.45.0-1ubuntu0.3+esm2

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2024-53858

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • govulncheck-vulndb openSUSE Tumbleweed 0.0.20241209T183251-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:14567-1

  • gh Azure Linux 3.0 2.62.0-5
  • gh CBL-Mariner 2.0 2.13.0-24

azure linux advisories AZL-53477AZL-53759

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2024-53858 updated

gh: github.com/cli/cli: Recursive repository cloning can leak authentication tokens to non-GitHub submodule hosts in the gh cli

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
23 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.28% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 20% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:L
GitHub 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:L

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
go github.com/cli/cli/v2
<2.63.0
2.63.0
go github.com/cli/cli
all versions
 no fix listed

Affected products

  • cli cli
  • github cli

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-200 Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

CPEs and fixed versions use Anchore's correction of NVD's data: Added CPE configurations because not yet analyzed by NVD.