AZL-113555: CVE-2026-105437 affecting package libgit2 1.7.2-3
Affected versions of Git have a heap buffer overflow in the three-way merge code (xdiff), which an attacker can trigger through a repository they control.
When Git merges a file, it first adds up the size of the merged output, allocates a buffer of that size, and then writes the output into it. That total was kept in a 32-bit signed integer. The conflict-marker-size attribute, which can be set from a committed .gitattributes file, accepts any positive integer, and the markers are written several times for every conflict. A small file with a huge marker size and many separate conflicts can therefore push the total past 4 GiB, so the integer wraps to a small value and Git writes attacker-controlled merge output past the end of a buffer that is too small. At minimum this crashes Git, and because the overflow is large and its contents are largely attacker-controlled, worse heap corruption is possible.
Any command that does a textual three-way merge can trigger it, such as git-merge(1), git-rebase(1), git-cherry-pick(1), and git-merge-tree(1). The latter is most likely a target for Git forges, which might use git-merge-tree(1) on the server-side to check mergeability. When the server reads attributes from trees in the repository (for example through attr.tree or --attr-source), any user who can push branches and request that they be merged (for example by opening a pull or merge request) can trigger the overflow without anyone else doing anything, and the data they push is small because the oversized output only appears during the merge.
The problem has been patched by computing the size as sizet and checking every addition for overflow, so Git stops with an error instead of overflowing.
Servers that cannot upgrade right away can add
conflict-marker-size=7
to each repository's info/attributes as a workaround, which overrides any in-tree .gitattributes, or turn off server-side mergeability checks for untrusted repositories.
Affected Software
Remediation
Recommended actions to resolve this vulnerability, in priority order.
- Configuration
Add `* conflict-marker-size=7` to each repository's `info/attributes` to override any in-tree .gitattributes setting.
Git conflict-marker-size = 7 - Compensating control
Turn off server-side mergeability checks for untrusted repositories.
Event History
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is most likely to be exposed?
Systems that perform textual three-way merges on repositories controlled by untrusted users are exposed. Git forges may be particularly at risk if they run git-merge-tree(1) server-side to check whether proposed changes can be merged.
What does an attacker need to trigger the issue?
The attacker needs to provide a repository containing a committed .gitattributes file with a very large positive conflict-marker-size value and a file with many separate merge conflicts. A textual three-way merge must then be performed against that repository.
Which operations can trigger the overflow?
Any command that performs a textual three-way merge can trigger it, including git-merge(1), git-rebase(1), git-cherry-pick(1), and git-merge-tree(1).
What is the likely impact if exploitation succeeds?
At minimum, Git can crash. The undersized buffer is followed by a large overflow whose output is largely attacker-controlled, so more serious heap corruption is possible.