AI Coding Agents Exposed to Code Execution via Malicious Git Config Files

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Popular AI coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor automatically run Git commands at startup to assess repository state, a convenience feature that introduces a serious security gap. Attackers can embed malicious Git configuration settings — such as a crafted core.fsmonitor directive — inside a shared or archived repository's .git folder to trigger arbitrary code execution without any user interaction. The attack requires no phishing or social engineering; simply sharing a zip file or archived project with an intact .git directory is enough to exploit the flaw. Security researchers note this is not a new vulnerability class — Git config injection has been documented for years — but AI agents dramatically expand the blast radius by acting autonomously before a user types a single command. Developers and teams building or evaluating AI coding tools are urged to sandbox all agent-initiated commands and to stop treating archived repositories as inert files.

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