Mercurial is one of the version control tools for all software developers. Mercurial metadata directory (.hg) was found in this folder. The metadata is used to keep track of all the changes in the source code of the application before it is committed to the central repository. The .hg gets ended up on the live server if the files are copied directly from the repository. An attacker can easily extract sensitive information along with the source code of the application by requesting the hidden .hg metadata directory.
Impact
One of the significant impacts for this vulnerability is a significant data breach using the .hg file. The attacker will get the source code of the application along with sensitive information.
Mitigation / Precaution
Beagle recommends the following solutions:-
- Restrict access to the .hg directory. This restriction can be applied by adding the below codes in global config, vhost/directory or .htaccess.
<Directory ~ "\.hg">
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
</Directory>
