CVE-2019-13005 in Community Edition
Summary
by MITRE
An issue was discovered in GitLab Enterprise Edition and Community Edition 1.10 through 12.0.2. The GitLab graphql service was vulnerable to multiple authorization issues that disclosed restricted user, group, and repository metadata to unauthorized users. It has Incorrect Access Control.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/11/2020
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2019-13005 represents a critical authorization flaw within GitLab's graphql service that affected versions ranging from 1.10 through 12.0.2 across both Enterprise and Community editions. This issue stems from inadequate access control mechanisms that allowed unauthorized users to gain visibility into restricted metadata associated with users, groups, and repositories within the GitLab platform. The vulnerability specifically manifests in the graphql endpoint which serves as a powerful query interface for accessing GitLab's data structures, making it a prime target for attackers seeking to enumerate sensitive information about the system's organizational structure and user base.
The technical implementation of this flaw demonstrates a failure in the graphql service's permission validation logic where the system does not properly enforce access restrictions when processing graphql queries. This misconfiguration allows authenticated users to construct queries that bypass normal access controls and retrieve metadata that should only be accessible to authorized personnel within specific groups or projects. The vulnerability operates at the application layer and directly violates the principle of least privilege by enabling unauthorized data exposure through the graphql interface. This authorization bypass affects the core security model of GitLab by allowing attackers to gather intelligence about the organization's user hierarchy, project structures, and group memberships without proper authentication credentials.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple information disclosure to potentially enable more sophisticated attacks. An attacker exploiting this issue could map the entire organizational structure of a GitLab instance, identify key users and their permissions, discover private repositories and project configurations, and potentially identify other systems within the organization that might be connected to GitLab. The exposure of user metadata could facilitate social engineering attacks, while repository information might reveal sensitive project details or development timelines. This vulnerability also impacts the overall security posture by creating a persistent reconnaissance capability that could be leveraged in subsequent attack phases, making it particularly dangerous in environments where GitLab serves as a central component of development infrastructure.
Organizations affected by this vulnerability should immediately implement mitigations including updating to patched versions of GitLab where available, implementing additional access controls at the network level, and monitoring graphql endpoint activity for unusual query patterns. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-284 which specifically addresses improper access control issues, and represents a clear violation of the ATT&CK technique T1087.001 for account discovery through unauthorized data access. Security teams should conduct comprehensive audits of their graphql endpoint usage, implement query rate limiting, and establish monitoring for unauthorized access attempts. The remediation process should include thorough testing of access control mechanisms and validation that all metadata queries properly enforce user permissions and group restrictions to prevent future occurrences of similar authorization failures.