An earlier patch discussed and fixed a scenario where Git could be used
as a vector to exfiltrate sensitive data through a Docker container when
a potential victim clones a suspicious repository with local submodules
that contain symlinks.
That security hole has since been plugged, but a similar one still
exists. Instead of convincing a would-be victim to clone an embedded
submodule via the "file" protocol, an attacker could convince an
individual to clone a repository that has a submodule pointing to a
valid path on the victim's filesystem.
For example, if an individual (with username "foo") has their home
directory ("/home/foo") stored as a Git repository, then an attacker
could exfiltrate data by convincing a victim to clone a malicious
repository containing a submodule pointing at "/home/foo/.git" with
`--recurse-submodules`. Doing so would expose any sensitive contents in
stored in "/home/foo" tracked in Git.
For systems (such as Docker) that consider everything outside of the
immediate top-level working directory containing a Dockerfile as
inaccessible to the container (with the exception of volume mounts, and
so on), this is a violation of trust by exposing unexpected contents in
the working copy.
To mitigate the likelihood of this kind of attack, adjust the "file://"
protocol's default policy to be "user" to prevent commands that execute
without user input (including recursive submodule initialization) from
taking place by default.
Suggested-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Signed-off-by: Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com>
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