CVE-2023-41040

GitPython is a python library used to interact with Git repositories. In order to resolve some git references, GitPython reads files from the .git directory, in some places the name of the file being read is provided by the user, GitPython doesn't check if this file is located outside the .git directory. This allows an attacker to make GitPython read any file from the system. This vulnerability is present in https://github.com/gitpython-developers/GitPython/blob/1c8310d7cae144f74a671cbe17e51f63a830adbf/git/refs/symbolic.py#L174-L175. That code joins the base directory with a user given string without checking if the final path is located outside the base directory. This vulnerability cannot be used to read the contents of files but could in theory be used to trigger a denial of service for the program. This issue has been addressed in version 3.1.37.

Summary

In order to resolve some git references, GitPython reads files from the .git directory, in some places the name of the file being read is provided by the user, GitPython doesn't check if this file is located outside the .git directory. This allows an attacker to make GitPython read any file from the system.

Details

This vulnerability is present in

https://github.com/gitpython-developers/GitPython/blob/1c8310d7cae144f74a671cbe17e51f63a830adbf/git/refs/symbolic.py#L174-L175

That code joins the base directory with a user given string without checking if the final path is located outside the base directory.

I was able to exploit it from three places, but there may be more code paths that lead to it:

https://github.com/gitpython-developers/GitPython/blob/1c8310d7cae144f74a671cbe17e51f63a830adbf/git/repo/base.py#L605

https://github.com/gitpython-developers/GitPython/blob/1c8310d7cae144f74a671cbe17e51f63a830adbf/git/repo/base.py#L620

https://github.com/gitpython-developers/GitPython/blob/1c8310d7cae144f74a671cbe17e51f63a830adbf/git/index/base.py#L1353

PoC

Running GitPython within any repo should work, here is an example with the GitPython repo.

import git

r = git.Repo(".")

# This will make GitPython read the README.md file from the root of the repo
r.commit("../README.md")
r.tree("../README.md")
r.index.diff("../README.md")

# Reading /etc/random
# WARNING: this will probably halt your system, run with caution
# r.commit("../../../../../../../../../dev/random")

Impact

I wasn't able to show the contents of the files (that's why "blind" local file inclusion), depending on how GitPython is being used, this can be used by an attacker for something inoffensive as checking if a file exits, or cause a DoS by making GitPython read a big/infinite file (like /dev/random on Linux systems).

Possible solutions

A solution would be to check that the final path isn't located outside the repodir path (maybe even after resolving symlinks). Maybe there could be other checks in place to make sure that the reference names are valid.

**GitPython*is a python library used to interact with Git repositories.GitPython provides object model read and write access to your git repository. Access repository information conveniently, alter the index directly, handle remotes, or go down to low-level object database access with big-files support.With the new object database abstraction added in 0.3, its even possible to implement your own storage mechanisms, the currently available implementations are 'cgit' and pure python, which is the default.Documentation The latest documentation can be found here: As this version of GitPython depends on GitDB, which in turn needs smmap to work, installation is a bit more involved if you do a manual installation, instead of using pip.

Security Fix(es):

GitPython is a python library used to interact with Git repositories. In order to resolve some git references, GitPython reads files from the .git directory, in some places the name of the file being read is provided by the user, GitPython doesn't check if this file is located outside the .git directory. This allows an attacker to make GitPython read any file from the system. This vulnerability is present in https://github.com/gitpython-developers/GitPython/blob/1c8310d7cae144f74a671cbe17e51f63a830adbf/git/refs/symbolic.py#L174-L175. That code joins the base directory with a user given string without checking if the final path is located outside the base directory. This vulnerability cannot be used to read the contents of files but could in theory be used to trigger a denial of service for the program. This issue has not yet been addressed.(CVE-2023-41040)

GitPython is a python library used to interact with Git repositories. In order to resolve some git references, GitPython reads files from the .git directory, in some places the name of the file being read is provided by the user, GitPython doesn't check if this file is located outside the .git directory. This allows an attacker to make GitPython read any file from the system. This vulnerability is present in https://github.com/gitpython-developers/GitPython/blob/1c8310d7cae144f74a671cbe17e51f63a830adbf/git/refs/symbolic.py#L174-L175. That code joins the base directory with a user given string without checking if the final path is located outside the base directory. This vulnerability cannot be used to read the contents of files but could in theory be used to trigger a denial of service for the program. This issue has not yet been addressed.

GitPython is a python library used to interact with Git repositories. In order to resolve some git references, GitPython reads files from the .git directory, in some places the name of the file being read is provided by the user, GitPython doesn't check if this file is located outside the .git directory. This allows an attacker to make GitPython read any file from the system. This vulnerability is present in https://github.com/gitpython-developers/GitPython/blob/1c8310d7cae144f74a671cbe17e51f63a830adbf/git/refs/symbolic.py#L174-L175. That code joins the base directory with a user given string without checking if the final path is located outside the base directory. This vulnerability cannot be used to read the contents of files but could in theory be used to trigger a denial of service for the program. This issue has been addressed in version 3.1.37.

TuxCare rebuilt gitpython to address 1 CVE. Fixed in 3.1.31.post1+tuxcare.

CVE-2023-40267 GitPython before 3.1.32 does not block insecure non-multi options in clone and clone_from. NOTE: this issue exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2022-24439. CVE-2023-41040 In order to resolve some git references, GitPython reads files from the .git directory, in some places the name of the file being read is provided by the user, GitPython doesn't check if this file is located outside the .git directory. This allows an attacker to make GitPython read any file from the system. CVE-2026-42215 From version 3.1.30 to before version 3.1.47, GitPython blocks dangerous Git options such as --upload-pack and --receive-pack by default, but the equivalent Python kwargs upload_pack and receive_pack bypass that check. If an application passes attacker-controlled kwargs into Repo.clone_from(), Remote.fetch(), Remote.pull(), or Remote.push(), this leads to arbitrary command execution even when allow_unsafe_options is left at its default value of False. This issue has been patched in version 3.1.47.

This update for python-GitPython fixes the following issues:

• CVE-2023-41040: Fixed directory traversal attack vulnerability (boo#1214810)

This update for python-GitPython fixes the following issues:

• CVE-2023-41040: Fixed directory traversal attack vulnerability (boo#1214810)

These are all security issues fixed in the python310-GitPython-3.1.34.1693646983.2a2ae77-1.1 package on the GA media of openSUSE Tumbleweed.

These are all security issues fixed in the python313-GitPython-3.1.56-1.1 package on the GA media of openSUSE Tumbleweed.

Santos Gallegos discovered that GitPython did not properly validate paths when resolving certain Git references. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause files outside the .git directory to be accessed, leading to a denial of service. This issue only affected Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. (CVE-2023-41040)

Wes Ring discovered that GitPython did not properly block certain unsafe Git options when they were provided as Python keyword arguments. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause arbitrary command execution. (CVE-2026-42215)

It was discovered that GitPython did not properly validate clone options before processing them. An attacker could possibly use this issue to inject unsafe Git configuration, leading to arbitrary command execution through Git hooks. This issue only affected Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. (CVE-2026-42284)

It was discovered that GitPython did not properly validate reference paths during reference operations. An attacker could possibly use this issue to write, overwrite, move, or delete files outside the repository. (CVE-2026-44243)

Dan Aridor discovered that GitPython did not properly validate configuration values before writing them to Git configuration files. An attacker could possibly use this issue to inject unsafe Git configuration, leading to arbitrary command execution through Git hooks. (CVE-2026-44244)