CVE-2019-9176 in Community
Summary
by MITRE
An issue was discovered in GitLab Community and Enterprise Edition before 11.6.10, 11.7.x before 11.7.6, and 11.8.x before 11.8.1. It allows CSRF.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/29/2023
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2019-9176 represents a cross-site request forgery flaw affecting GitLab Community and Enterprise Edition installations across multiple version ranges including versions prior to 11.6.10, 11.7.6, and 11.8.1. This issue arises from inadequate protection mechanisms that fail to validate the origin of requests submitted to the GitLab application, creating a significant security risk for organizations relying on these platforms for version control and collaboration. The flaw specifically impacts the authentication and authorization mechanisms within GitLab's web interface, potentially allowing malicious actors to perform unauthorized actions on behalf of authenticated users.
The technical implementation of this CSRF vulnerability stems from the absence of proper anti-CSRF tokens in critical web forms and API endpoints within the GitLab application. When users navigate to malicious websites or click on compromised links while maintaining an active GitLab session, attackers can leverage the user's authenticated context to execute unintended operations such as creating new projects, modifying repository settings, or altering user permissions. This occurs because the application fails to verify that requests originate from legitimate sources within the GitLab domain rather than external malicious domains. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery issues in web applications where proper validation of request sources is missing.
The operational impact of CVE-2019-9176 extends beyond simple data manipulation to potentially compromise entire development environments and collaboration workflows within organizations. Attackers exploiting this vulnerability could gain unauthorized access to sensitive repositories, modify code configurations, or establish backdoors through project creation and configuration changes. The risk is particularly elevated in enterprise environments where GitLab serves as a central hub for software development operations, potentially leading to intellectual property theft, service disruption, or unauthorized system modifications. Organizations using GitLab for CI/CD pipelines and automated deployment processes face additional risks as compromised accounts could lead to unauthorized code deployments or infrastructure changes.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability require immediate patching of affected GitLab installations to versions 11.6.10, 11.7.6, or 11.8.1 respectively, which contain the necessary anti-CSRF token implementations. Organizations should also implement additional security measures including network segmentation to limit access to GitLab instances, regular security audits of web applications, and enhanced monitoring for suspicious user activities. The implementation of Content Security Policy headers and proper session management practices can further reduce the attack surface. This vulnerability demonstrates the importance of maintaining up-to-date security patches as outlined in the MITRE ATT&CK framework under the technique of privilege escalation through web application vulnerabilities, where attackers exploit authentication bypasses to gain unauthorized access to systems and data.