CVE-2022-1105 in Community Edition
Summary
by MITRE • 04/05/2022
An improper access control vulnerability in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 13.11 prior to 14.7.7, 14.8 prior to 14.8.5, and 14.9 prior to 14.9.2 allows an unauthorized user to access pipeline analytics even when public pipelines are disabled
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/06/2022
This vulnerability represents a critical access control flaw in GitLab Community and Enterprise Edition platforms that undermines the fundamental security boundaries designed to protect pipeline analytics data. The issue affects versions prior to specific patch releases, creating a persistent risk where unauthorized users can bypass intended access restrictions and gain visibility into pipeline analytics even when public pipeline functionality has been explicitly disabled by administrators. This misconfiguration creates a significant security gap that directly violates the principle of least privilege and could expose sensitive operational data to malicious actors.
The technical root cause stems from inadequate validation of user permissions within the pipeline analytics component of GitLab's access control system. When public pipelines are disabled through administrative settings, the system should enforce strict access controls that prevent unauthorized users from accessing pipeline metrics, execution details, and related analytics. However, this vulnerability allows authenticated but unauthorized users to circumvent these protections through improper access control checks that fail to properly validate user roles and permissions against the configured pipeline visibility settings. The flaw manifests in the authorization logic where the system does not adequately verify that users possess the appropriate privileges to access pipeline analytics data, regardless of the public pipeline configuration.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data exposure to encompass potential operational security risks and compliance violations. Attackers could exploit this weakness to gather intelligence about pipeline configurations, execution patterns, and operational workflows within the organization's CI/CD environment. This information could be leveraged to identify system vulnerabilities, understand deployment patterns, and potentially craft more sophisticated attacks targeting the continuous integration infrastructure. The exposure of pipeline analytics data may reveal sensitive information about development processes, code quality metrics, and operational dependencies that could be valuable to adversaries planning targeted attacks. Organizations relying on GitLab for their software development lifecycle may face increased risk of supply chain attacks or insider threat scenarios where unauthorized access to pipeline data creates additional attack vectors.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability require immediate patching of affected GitLab installations to the recommended versions that contain the necessary access control fixes. System administrators should also conduct thorough audits of their pipeline visibility settings to ensure that public pipeline configurations align with organizational security policies and that appropriate access controls remain properly enforced. Security monitoring should be enhanced to detect unauthorized access attempts to pipeline analytics, and regular penetration testing should be performed to validate that access control mechanisms function correctly. Organizations should implement principle-based access controls that restrict pipeline analytics access to only those users who require such information for legitimate operational purposes, following the guidelines established in the mitre ATT&CK framework for privilege escalation and credential access techniques. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-285, which addresses improper authorization issues, and represents a specific instance of insufficient access control that could be exploited as part of broader attack chains targeting development infrastructure.