Git Patches CVE-2026-111760 Allowing Code Execution During Recursive Clones
Git patched CVE-2026-111760 and five related flaws, including a recursive clone path that can execute attacker code through submodule.git symlink replacement and hooks. The fixes matter because recursive clone is a routine developer action, making untrusted repositories an active execution vector for developers, CI systems and code-hosting servers.
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Git 2.56.1 fixes CVE-2026-111760, an integer truncation in Git's index handling. A repository can contain an extremely long path that passes Git's safety check, then gets written to disk under a shorter attacker-controlled name:.git. In a freshly cloned submodule,.git is a file, so Git can replace it with a symbolic link pointing to a folder containing malicious hooks or configuration. Hooks run at set points, so attacker code can execute on the cloning machine.
The fixes are Git 2.50.2, 2.51.3, 2.52.1, 2.53.1, 2.54.1, 2.55.1 and 2.56.1. GitHub said patched releases reject extremely long paths before their length is cut short. GitHub applied the fixes to github.com and GitHub Enterprise Cloud, and shipped them in GitHub Enterprise Server 3.19.15, 3.20.11, 3.21.9 and 3.22.4. GitHub said fixed versions of GitHub Desktop and GitHub Copilot were being prepared, while Git for Windows had not released a 2.56.1-based build as of Tuesday at 19:09 UTC.
The release also fixes five other flaws, including path traversal over Git protocol v2, a GPG signature merge crash, a binary patch out-of-bounds read, a heap corruption in large merges, and unsafe fast-import features. GitLab assigned one heap-corruption flaw and said code-hosting servers are most likely to be targeted through git merge-tree, a command servers may run to check whether a pull or merge request can be merged. A repository can set conflict-marker-size in.gitattributes, giving any user who can push branches and open a request a potential trigger.
The core problem is that recursive clone, treated as a passive retrieval step, can become an execution step. Submodules turn repository content into Git state, and hooks turn Git state into program execution. Developers, CI runners, code hosts and enterprise servers that clone untrusted repositories are exposed. Until patched Git is installed everywhere, the practical defense is narrower: avoid recursive clones, merges, tags and binary patches from untrusted sources, a workaround that does not remove the underlying risk.
Developers, CI runners, code hosts and enterprise servers that clone untrusted repositories are exposed because recursive clone can execute attacker code; patching Git and avoiding recursive clones from untrusted sources are the documented mitigations.
Sources (1)
- [1]Original source(https://thehackernews.com/2026/11/git-patches-flaw-that-lets-malicious.html)