CVE-2019-7549 in Community Edition
Summary
by MITRE
An issue was discovered in GitLab Community and Enterprise Edition 10.x and 11.x before 11.5.10, 11.6.x before 11.6.8, and 11.7.x before 11.7.3. It has Incorrect Access Control,
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/25/2023
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2019-7549 represents a critical access control flaw affecting GitLab Community and Enterprise Edition versions across multiple release streams. This issue allows unauthorized users to bypass intended security restrictions and gain elevated privileges within the GitLab platform. The vulnerability impacts versions 10.x and 11.x prior to specific patch releases, creating a window of exposure that could enable malicious actors to exploit the system's permission model.
The technical root cause of this access control vulnerability stems from inadequate validation of user permissions during specific operations within the GitLab application. The flaw manifests when the system fails to properly verify whether a user possesses sufficient privileges to perform certain actions, particularly those related to project management and access configuration. This weakness enables attackers to manipulate the application's authorization mechanisms and potentially access restricted resources or perform administrative functions without proper authentication. The vulnerability operates at the application logic level, making it particularly dangerous as it undermines the fundamental security model that GitLab employs to protect user data and project integrity.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability presents significant risks to organizations relying on GitLab for version control and collaboration. Attackers exploiting this flaw could gain unauthorized access to private repositories, modify project settings, manipulate code access controls, or potentially escalate privileges to administrative levels. The impact extends beyond individual repositories to affect the entire GitLab instance, potentially compromising sensitive source code, development workflows, and organizational intellectual property. The vulnerability's persistence across multiple minor versions indicates a systemic issue in the access control implementation that required coordinated patching efforts across different release streams.
Organizations should immediately implement mitigations including upgrading to the patched versions 11.5.10, 11.6.8, or 11.7.3 as recommended by GitLab. Additional defensive measures include implementing network-level restrictions, monitoring access logs for unusual activity patterns, and conducting thorough privilege audits to identify any potential exploitation attempts. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-285, which addresses improper authorization in software systems, and corresponds to ATT&CK technique T1078 for valid accounts and T1548 for abuse of privileges. Security teams should also consider implementing additional layers of authentication and access control monitoring to detect potential exploitation attempts. Regular security assessments and vulnerability scanning should be conducted to identify similar access control weaknesses within the broader GitLab ecosystem and related applications.