diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 0da0763..256f94b 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -28,7 +28,6 @@ Authors@R: c(
 Depends:
   R (>= 3.6)
 Imports:
-  gert,
   gh,
   igraph,
   jsonlite,
@@ -39,6 +38,7 @@ Imports:
   vctrs,
   yaml
 Suggests:
+  gert,
   testthat (>= 3.0.0)
 Encoding: UTF-8
 Language: en-US
diff --git a/NAMESPACE b/NAMESPACE
index 6a10a10..7be3fcd 100644
--- a/NAMESPACE
+++ b/NAMESPACE
@@ -19,7 +19,6 @@ export(review_pull_requests)
 export(staging_is_active)
 export(try_message)
 export(update_staging)
-importFrom(gert,git_clone)
 importFrom(gh,gh)
 importFrom(igraph,V)
 importFrom(igraph,graph)
@@ -36,6 +35,7 @@ importFrom(pkgsearch,cran_package)
 importFrom(stats,aggregate)
 importFrom(utils,available.packages)
 importFrom(utils,compareVersion)
+importFrom(utils,unzip)
 importFrom(vctrs,vec_rbind)
 importFrom(vctrs,vec_slice)
 importFrom(yaml,read_yaml)
diff --git a/R/issues_descriptions.R b/R/issues_descriptions.R
index 2b2de78..e00641a 100644
--- a/R/issues_descriptions.R
+++ b/R/issues_descriptions.R
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ issues_descriptions <- function(meta = meta_packages()) {
 }
 
 issues_descriptions_advisories <- function(meta) {
-  advisories <- read_advisories()
+  advisories <- read_advisories(timeout = 60000L, retries = 3L)
   meta <- merge(
     x = meta,
     y = advisories,
@@ -48,19 +48,28 @@ issues_descriptions_remotes <- function(meta) {
   meta
 }
 
-read_advisories <- function() {
+read_advisories <- function(timeout, retries) {
   path <- tempfile()
+  dir.create(path)
   on.exit(unlink(path, recursive = TRUE, force = TRUE))
-  gert::git_clone(
-    url = "https://github.com/RConsortium/r-advisory-database",
-    path = path,
-    verbose = FALSE
-  )
-  advisories <- list.files(
-    file.path(path, "vulns"),
-    recursive = TRUE,
-    full.names = TRUE
-  )
+  zipfile <- file.path(path, "file.zip")
+  for (i in seq_len(retries)) {
+    res <- nanonext::ncurl(
+      "https://github.com/RConsortium/r-advisory-database/zipball/main",
+      convert = FALSE,
+      follow = TRUE,
+      timeout = timeout
+    )
+    res[["status"]] == 200L && break
+    i == retries && stop(
+      "Obtaining advisories from R Consortium database failed with status: ",
+      status_code(res[["status"]]),
+      call. = FALSE
+    )
+  }
+  writeBin(res[["data"]], zipfile)
+  unzip(zipfile, exdir = path, junkpaths = TRUE)
+  advisories <- Sys.glob(file.path(path, "RSEC*.yaml"))
   out <- do.call(vctrs::vec_rbind, lapply(advisories, read_advisory))
   stats::aggregate(x = advisories ~ package + version, data = out, FUN = list)
 }
diff --git a/R/package.R b/R/package.R
index c17fbfa..a100aea 100644
--- a/R/package.R
+++ b/R/package.R
@@ -1,11 +1,10 @@
-#' @importFrom gert git_clone
 #' @importFrom gh gh
 #' @importFrom igraph graph neighbors subcomponent V
 #' @importFrom jsonlite parse_json read_json stream_in write_json
 #' @importFrom nanonext ncurl parse_url status_code
 #' @importFrom pkgsearch cran_package
 #' @importFrom stats aggregate
-#' @importFrom utils available.packages compareVersion
+#' @importFrom utils available.packages compareVersion unzip
 #' @importFrom vctrs vec_rbind vec_slice
 #' @importFrom yaml read_yaml
 NULL