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

The remote Ubuntu 24.04 LTS host has a package installed that is affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the USN-8012-1 advisory.

    It was discovered that GitHub CLI could behave unexpectedly if users downloaded a malicious GitHub Actions     workflow artifact through gh run download. An attacker could possibly use this issue to create or     overwrite files in unintended directories. (CVE-2024-54132)

    It was discovered that GitHub CLI could behave unexpectedly when cloning repositories containing git     submodules hosted outside of GitHub.com and ghe.com. An attacker could possibly use this issue to gather     authentication tokens. (CVE-2024-53858)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

  - 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     (CVE-2024-53858)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

There are packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability referenced in the following CVE:

  - 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
    (CVE-2024-53858)

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
298152	Ubuntu 24.04 LTS : GitHub CLI vulnerabilities (USN-8012-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	medium
231416	Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2024-53858	Nessus	Misc.	medium
416603	SCA: security update for github.com/cli/cli/v2 (GHSA-jwcm-9g39-pmcw)	Tenable Cloud Security	SCA Checks	medium
416603	SCA: security update for github.com/cli/cli/v2 (GHSA-jwcm-9g39-pmcw)	Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security	SCA Checks	medium

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2024-53858

medium

Tenable Plugins

medium

medium

medium

medium