Researchers reported the vulnerability to Cursor in December, but it still remains in the popular AI coding platform and can be exploited in poisoned repository attacks.
July 14, 2026
Researchers say a newly discovered security vulnerability can cause a Cursor development environment to execute a malicious binary effortlessly.
Offensive security firm Mindgard today published new research detailing the vulnerability involving Cursor, an extremely popular AI tool used for software development. The vulnerability allows a developer to implant a malicious "git.exe" in a repository, and if a developer opens a project containing the git.exe binary in the repository at root, the Cursor client will automatically execute the poisoned file.
"The technical issue itself is remarkably straightforward. When loading a project, Cursor attempts to locate Git binaries across multiple locations," Mindgard's blog post read. "One of those locations includes the workspace itself. If an attacker planted a malicious git.exe in the repository root, Cursor will execute it automatically as part of its path resolution logic without warning, approval, or even an indication that executable content from the repository is about to run."
