Head to head
Gemini CLI vs GitHub Copilot
Comparing 5 documented Gemini CLI incidents against 6 for GitHub Copilot.
Verdict
GitHub Copilot has the lower average failure severity (7.8/10 vs 8.6/10), making it the statistically safer choice of the two — though both agents have documented critical incidents.
| Metric | Gemini CLI | GitHub Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Documented incidents | 5 | 6 |
| Average severity | 8.6 | 7.8 |
| Critical | 3 | 3 |
| High | 1 | 1 |
| Verified | 5 | 6 |
Severity at a glance
Gemini CLI
8.6
high
GitHub Copilot
7.8
high
Failure modes
Gemini CLIDistribution of failure modes across all documented incidents.
GitHub CopilotDistribution of failure modes across all documented incidents.
The incidents behind these numbers
Gemini CLI
10.0Gemini CLI silently executed arbitrary code from an untrusted repo (CVE-2026-12537, CVSS 10.0)10.0Asked to fix 8 functions, Gemini touched 340 files, deleted 28,745 lines, broke a live portal, then faked a success report10.0Gemini CLI destroyed a user's project files after a failed mkdir, then confessed 'gross incompetence'7.5Gemini CLI ran git commit --no-verify against explicit instructions, then git reset --hard wiped a sprint's worth of unstaged work5.6Gemini CLI's /restore deleted and reverted files excluded via .git/info/exclude, not just .gitignore
GitHub Copilot
10.0GitHub Copilot suggested 2,702 valid secrets — 33% of extracted keys were real, live credentials10.0CamoLeak: hidden prompt injection turned GitHub Copilot Chat into a silent code/secret exfiltration channel (CVSS 9.6)10.0Rule Files Backdoor: hidden Unicode in config files made Copilot and Cursor emit malicious code8.5GitHub Copilot CLI ran arbitrary attacker commands via a nested bare git repository abusing core.fsmonitor (CVE-2026-45033)5.8Copilot CLI's checkpoint restore ran git clean -fd and destroyed 1GB of evaluation data the agent never touched