CVE-2021-21300

malicious repositories can execute remote code while cloning

HIGH

7.5

CVSS Score

Published: March 9, 2021 at 12:00 AM UTC

Updated: June 17, 2026 at 03:35 AM UTC

6 products affected across 5 vendorsDebian LinuxFedoraXcode

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Severity

HIGH7.5

Exploit prediction

EPSS 89%

Description

Git is an open-source distributed revision control system. In affected versions of Git a specially crafted repository that contains symbolic links as well as files using a clean/smudge filter such as Git LFS, may cause just-checked out script to be executed while cloning onto a case-insensitive file system such as NTFS, HFS+ or APFS (i.e. the default file systems on Windows and macOS). Note that clean/smudge filters have to be configured for that. Git for Windows configures Git LFS by default, and is therefore vulnerable. The problem has been patched in the versions published on Tuesday, March 9th, 2021. As a workaound, if symbolic link support is disabled in Git (e.g. via `git config --global core.symlinks false`), the described attack won't work. Likewise, if no clean/smudge filters such as Git LFS are configured globally (i.e. _before_ cloning), the attack is foiled. As always, it is best to avoid cloning repositories from untrusted sources. The earliest impacted version is 2.14.2. The fix versions are: 2.30.1, 2.29.3, 2.28.1, 2.27.1, 2.26.3, 2.25.5, 2.24.4, 2.23.4, 2.22.5, 2.21.4, 2.20.5, 2.19.6, 2.18.5, 2.17.62.17.6.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

Xcode · Apple

95%

v < 12.5

Affected range stops below 12.5, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

apple-macos (environment)

Debian Linux · Debiandrupal

95%

10.0

Fedora · Fedora Projectrpm

95%

32 33 34

Git · Git Scm

95%

v ≤ 2.14.22.17.0 ≤ v < 2.17.62.18.0 ≤ v < 2.18.52.19.0 ≤ v < 2.19.62.20.0 ≤ v < 2.20.52.21.0 ≤ v < 2.21.42.22.0 ≤ v < 2.22.52.23.0 ≤ v < 2.23.42.24.0 ≤ v < 2.24.42.25.0 ≤ v < 2.25.52.26.0 ≤ v < 2.26.32.29.0 ≤ v < 2.29.32.30.0 ≤ v < 2.30.22.27.0 2.28.0

Affected range stops below 2.17.6, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Affected range stops below 2.18.5, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Affected range stops below 2.19.6, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Affected range stops below 2.20.5, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Affected range stops below 2.21.4, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Affected range stops below 2.22.5, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Affected range stops below 2.23.4, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Affected range stops below 2.24.4, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Affected range stops below 2.25.5, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Affected range stops below 2.26.3, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Affected range stops below 2.29.3, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Affected range stops below 2.30.2, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Git · Gitrubygems

60%

v < 2.17.62.17.6v < 2.18.5v < 2.19.6v < 2.20.5v < 2.21.4v < 2.22.5v < 2.23.4v < 2.24.4v < 2.25.5v < 2.26.3v < 2.27.1v < 2.28.1v < 2.29.3v < 2.30.1

Affected range stops below 2.17.62.17.6, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement