CVE-2026-94620

Classroom 50 vulnerable to arbitrary file overwrite on the teacher's machine via symlink in a student repo (gh teacher download)

State
Published
Severity
9.4 Critical
Published
Oct 1, 2026
Updated
Oct 1, 2026
Reserved
Sep 21, 2026

Read the record on cve.org

Description

Classroom 50 is a free and open-source tool for managing and grading programming assignments via GitHub. Prior to version 1.11.0, `gh teacher download` clones each student's assignment repository and then writes autograde artifacts (`result.json` and `results.json`) into the just-cloned working tree. The write followed symlinks, so a student who committed `result.json` or `results.json` as a **symlink** (materialized verbatim by `git clone`) could redirect the teacher's write to an arbitrary path — e.g. `~/.zshrc`, `~/.ssh/authorized_keys`, a cron file, or an in-clone `.git/hooks/*` file that git subsequently executes. The written bytes are attacker-controlled (the student's uploaded release asset for `result.json`; student-chosen submit-tag names for `results.json`). This is an arbitrary file write leading to code execution as the teacher, whose `gh` token carries `admin:org`, `repo`, and `workflow` across the entire classroom organization. Version 1.11.0 contains a patch. Some workarounds are available. Avoid running `gh teacher download` against untrusted student repositories, or run it inside a disposable sandbox / container with no access to sensitive host files or credentials. Inspect cloned trees for symlinked, hardlinked, or special (`result.json`/`results.json`) entries before allowing the artifact-refresh step to run.

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
4.09.4 CriticalCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:HGitHub_M

Weaknesses

  • CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')
  • CWE-59 Improper Link Resolution Before File Access ('Link Following')

Affected Products

ProductVersions
classroom50foundation50
  • < 1.11.0Affected

References

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