The bug occurs when bash
gets executed with a specially crafted environment variable.
Remote exploitation over SSH
is only possible when bash
is executed. When the ForceCommand
SSH option is in use, that command always gets executed using the login shell of the authenticated user (see the manual page of sshd_config
).
Vulnerable configurations include public git services which normally restrict you to just running git commands. With this bug, you would be able to execute shell commands, bypassing the ForceCommand
restriction. For a git daemon service, this could mean that you can access all repositories owned by the system user (bypassing access restrictions imposed by, say, gitolite
).