CVE-2025-11578
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.
Does this matter?
High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.66%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.
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 3.14.20, 3.15.15, 3.16.11, 3.17.8, 3.18.2. This vulnerability was reported via the GitHub Bug Bounty program.
- CVSS 4.0
- 7.5 HIGHCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:H/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/M
- EPSS
- 0.66% probability · 50th percentile
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Weakness
- CWE-59
- Affected
- github/enterprise server
- Source
- product-cna@github.com
References
- https://docs.github.com/en/enterprise-server@3.14/admin/release-notes#3.14.20Release Notes, Vendor Advisory
- https://docs.github.com/en/enterprise-server@3.15/admin/release-notes#3.15.15Release Notes, Vendor Advisory
- https://docs.github.com/en/enterprise-server@3.16/admin/release-notes#3.16.11Release Notes, Vendor Advisory
- https://docs.github.com/en/enterprise-server@3.17/admin/release-notes#3.17.8Release Notes, Vendor Advisory
- https://docs.github.com/en/enterprise-server@3.18/admin/release-notes#3.18.2Release Notes, Vendor Advisory
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.