A privilege escalation vulnerability was identified in GitHub Enterprise Server that allowed an authenticated Enterprise admin to gain root SSH access to the appliance by exploiting a symlink escape in pre-receive hook environments. By crafting a malicious repository and environment, an attacker could replace system binaries during hook cleanup and execute a payload that adds their own SSH key to the root user’s authorized keys—thereby granting themselves root SSH access to the server. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker needed to have enterprise admin privileges. This vulnerability affected all versions of GitHub Enterprise Server prior to 3.19, and was fixed in versions 3.14.19, 3.15.14, 3.16.10, 3.17.7 and 3.18.1. This vulnerability was reported via the GitHub Bug Bounty program.
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Affected Vendors & Products
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History
Wed, 12 Nov 2025 21:15:00 +0000
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ssvc
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Wed, 12 Nov 2025 13:00:00 +0000
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Github
Github enterprise Server |
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Github
Github enterprise Server |
Mon, 10 Nov 2025 23:00:00 +0000
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| Description | A privilege escalation vulnerability was identified in GitHub Enterprise Server that allowed an authenticated Enterprise admin to gain root SSH access to the appliance by exploiting a symlink escape in pre-receive hook environments. By crafting a malicious repository and environment, an attacker could replace system binaries during hook cleanup and execute a payload that adds their own SSH key to the root user’s authorized keys—thereby granting themselves root SSH access to the server. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker needed to have enterprise admin privileges. This vulnerability affected all versions of GitHub Enterprise Server prior to 3.19, and was fixed in versions 3.14.19, 3.15.14, 3.16.10, 3.17.7 and 3.18.1. This vulnerability was reported via the GitHub Bug Bounty program. | |
| Title | Pre-Receive Hook Path Collision Vulnerability in GitHub Enterprise Server Allowing Privilege Escalation | |
| Weaknesses | CWE-59 | |
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| Metrics |
cvssV4_0
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Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: GitHub_P
Published: 2025-11-10T22:44:33.200Z
Updated: 2025-11-12T20:12:10.957Z
Reserved: 2025-10-10T07:00:07.064Z
Link: CVE-2025-11578
Updated: 2025-11-12T17:33:31.291Z
Status : Awaiting Analysis
Published: 2025-11-10T23:15:41.193
Modified: 2025-11-12T16:19:59.103
Link: CVE-2025-11578
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