diff --git a/http.c b/http.c
index 1044f9ba0e28ff..057f250b9c4323 100644
--- a/http.c
+++ b/http.c
@@ -590,7 +590,7 @@ static CURL *get_curl_handle(void)
 	 * precedence here, as in CURL.
 	 */
 	if (!curl_http_proxy) {
-		if (!strcmp(http_auth.protocol, "https")) {
+		if (http_auth.protocol && !strcmp(http_auth.protocol, "https")) {
 			var_override(&curl_http_proxy, getenv("HTTPS_PROXY"));
 			var_override(&curl_http_proxy, getenv("https_proxy"));
 		} else {
diff --git a/t/t5550-http-fetch-dumb.sh b/t/t5550-http-fetch-dumb.sh
index 64146352ae20e9..9249140f99890f 100755
--- a/t/t5550-http-fetch-dumb.sh
+++ b/t/t5550-http-fetch-dumb.sh
@@ -250,5 +250,13 @@ test_expect_success 'git client does not send an empty Accept-Language' '
 	! grep "^Accept-Language:" stderr
 '
 
+test_expect_success 'remote-http complains cleanly about malformed urls' '
+	# do not actually issue "list" or other commands, as we do not
+	# want to rely on what curl would actually do with such a broken
+	# URL. This is just about making sure we do not segfault during
+	# initialization.
+	test_must_fail git remote-http http::/example.com/repo.git
+'
+
 stop_httpd
 test_done