CVE-2026-33718: OpenHands is Vulnerable to Command Injection through its Git Diff Handler

Summary

A Command Injection vulnerability exists in the getgitdiff() method at openhands/runtime/utils/githandler.py:134. The path parameter from the /api/conversations/{conversationid}/git/diff API endpoint is passed unsanitized to a shell command, allowing authenticated attackers to execute arbitrary commands in the agent sandbox. The user is already allowed to instruct the agent to execute commands, but this bypasses the normal channels.

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Details

Vulnerable Code Path

The vulnerability flows through these files:

1. API Endpoint (openhands/server/routes/files.py:267-277) python @app.get('/git/diff') async def gitdiff( path: str, # <-- User input from HTTP request ... ): ... diff = await callsyncfromasync(runtime.getgitdiff, path, cwd) # No sanitization

2. Runtime (openhands/runtime/base.py:1231-1233) python def getgitdiff(self, filepath: str, cwd: str) -> dict[str, str]: self.githandler.setcwd(cwd) return self.githandler.getgitdiff(filepath) # Passed directly

3. Vulnerable Method (openhands/runtime/utils/githandler.py:10-12, 134) python Command template with placeholder GITDIFFCMD = 'python3 /openhands/code/openhands/runtime/utils/gitdiff.py "{filepath}"'

Line 134 - VULNERABLE: User input directly interpolated result = self.execute(self.gitdiffcmd.format(filepath=filepath), self.cwd)

4. Shell Execution (openhands/runtime/utils/gitdiff.py:25-27) python def run(cmd: str, cwd: str) -> str: result = subprocess.run( args=cmd, shell=True, # <-- Enables shell metacharacter interpretation stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, cwd=cwd )

Root Cause

The filepath parameter is directly interpolated into a shell command string using Python's .format() method without any sanitization. When this command is executed with shell=True, shell metacharacters like ", ;, and # are interpreted, allowing command injection.

Example: - Input: test"; id # - Constructed command: python3 /script.py "test"; id #" - Shell interprets as two commands: python3 /script.py "test" AND id

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Impact

Who is Affected - All OpenHands deployments exposing the /api/conversations/{id}/git/diff endpoint - Any authenticated user can exploit this vulnerability,

Attack Capabilities An attacker can: 1. Execute arbitrary commands on the runtime container as root 2. Read sensitive files including .env, API keys, source code 3. Write arbitrary files to inject malicious code 4. Establish reverse shells for persistent access 5. Potentially escape the container if Docker is misconfigured

Mitigation

Users should update to the latest version of OpenHands that includes the changes from PR #13051. The fix replaces direct shell string formatting with proper argument array handling or rigorous path sanitization to prevent command chaining.