15-Year-Old Bug Still Haunting GitHub: The Ghost of Vulnerabilities Past
The notorious 2010 GitHub Gist vulnerability has stubbornly persisted like glitter after a craft project. Despite numerous warnings, it’s spread to MDN Web Docs, Stack Overflow, and even infiltrated large language models (LLMs), generating insecure code. But fear not, a team has developed an automated system to finally squash this bug on GitHub.
Hot Take:
Who knew a bug could have such a thriving social life? Fifteen years of fame, hopping from GitHub to Stack Overflow, and even making guest appearances in LLMs! It’s the Kim Kardashian of vulnerabilities, but its reality show days might be over thanks to a team of academic bug busters. Watch out, world, the path traversal bug’s party might finally be ending!
Key Points:
- A 15-year-old path traversal vulnerability has spread from GitHub to major platforms like Stack Overflow and even LLMs.
- The vulnerability, identified as CWE-22, allows attackers to access directories outside the intended scope.
- Efforts to mitigate the issue include an automated vulnerability repair system developed by researchers.
- Popular LLMs often reproduce insecure code patterns, complicating efforts for secure coding.
- A remediation rate of only 14% was achieved due to outdated projects and lack of attention to vulnerability notifications.
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