[cryptbe]

I think we can agree that Git is at least partly responsible for this issue, if not more.

That said, even being aware of that doesn’t necessarily help much in practice. When you’re using Emacs or Vim, you’re not really thinking about Git at all. You’re just opening and editing files. So it’s not obvious to most users why Git would be relevant in that context.

This is why I think editor maintainers should do more to protect their users. Even if the root cause sits elsewhere, users experience the risk at the point where they open files. From their perspective, the editor is the last line of defense, so it makes sense to add safeguards there.

[johnisgood]

Please read the LLM output critically instead of doubling down on it.

Your defense-in-depth framing makes no sense. If .git/config or similar mechanisms are the attack vector, then adding more editor safeguards would be treating a symptom, as the real problem is git's trust model. The "users don't think about git when using editors" argument also proves too much. Many users also do not think about PATH, shell configs, dynamic linker, or their font renderer either, but you cannot make editors bulletproof against all transitive dependencies...

Seriously, it is actually backwards. Git is where the defense belongs, not every downstream tool that happens to invoke git. Asking editors to sandbox git's behavior is exactly as absurd as it sounds.

And BTW, "technically AV:L but feels like RCE" is your usual blog-post hype. It either is, or is not.

[eesmith]

Sure, but you said that was the end of the day analysis, and I didn't think you went far enough in your analysis.

FWIW, I'm not thinking about git at all since I use Mercurial, and never enabled vc hooks in my emacs, which is based on 25.3.50.1, so wasn't affected by this exploit - I tested. I use git and hg only from the command-line.

My end-of-day analysis is to avoid git entirely if you can't trust its security model. ;)

Should the emacs developers also do more to secure emacs against ImageMagick exploits?

[a456463]

Git is also not responsible. Please stop drinking this LLM coolaid and trying to get hype on that.