CVE-2022-3411 in Community Edition
Summary
by MITRE • 02/14/2023
A lack of length validation in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 12.4 before 15.6.7, 15.7 before 15.7.6, and 15.8 before 15.8.1 allows an authenticated attacker to create a large Issue description via GraphQL which, when repeatedly requested, saturates CPU usage.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/14/2026
This vulnerability exists within GitLab Community Edition and Enterprise Edition platforms where insufficient input validation occurs in the GraphQL API endpoint responsible for handling issue descriptions. The flaw specifically manifests when authenticated users submit issue descriptions containing excessively long data payloads through GraphQL queries. The vulnerability is categorized under CWE-20 as a weakness involving improper input validation, where the system fails to adequately constrain the length of user-supplied data before processing. Attackers can exploit this by creating maliciously long issue descriptions that when repeatedly accessed or queried through the GraphQL interface, cause excessive computational overhead.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple resource exhaustion as it enables a form of denial of service attack that can severely impact system performance and availability. When the GraphQL endpoint processes these oversized issue descriptions, the system's CPU utilization spikes dramatically due to the intensive parsing and processing required to handle the malformed data. This behavior aligns with ATT&CK technique T1499.004 which describes network disruption attacks through resource exhaustion. The vulnerability affects a broad range of GitLab versions including 12.4 through 15.6.6, 15.7 through 15.7.5, and 15.8 through 15.8.0, indicating a prolonged period of exposure where organizations could be vulnerable to this type of attack.
The technical implementation of this attack requires an authenticated user account to exploit the vulnerability, which means the attacker must first gain access to a valid GitLab account. However, once authenticated, the attacker can submit a large payload through the GraphQL API endpoint without proper validation. The system processes these oversized payloads through its GraphQL query handling mechanism, which then consumes disproportionate CPU cycles during parsing, rendering the system less responsive to legitimate user requests. This vulnerability demonstrates a classic case of insufficient input sanitization where the application does not implement proper bounds checking on user-provided content before storing and retrieving it through the GraphQL interface. The resource consumption pattern suggests that the system performs iterative processing operations on the oversized data, leading to exponential CPU usage growth with each request.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including enforcing strict length limits on issue description fields within their GitLab installations, particularly for GraphQL endpoints that handle user-generated content. The recommended approach involves configuring input validation rules that prevent the storage of issue descriptions exceeding predetermined length thresholds, typically measured in kilobytes or characters. System administrators should also consider implementing rate limiting mechanisms to prevent repeated queries against the same maliciously large issue descriptions. Additionally, regular monitoring of CPU utilization patterns and automated alerting systems can help detect unusual resource consumption that may indicate exploitation attempts. The vulnerability highlights the importance of defensive programming practices and proper input validation as outlined in secure coding guidelines, particularly for API endpoints that process user-supplied data. Organizations should also review their GitLab configurations to ensure that appropriate security controls are in place and consider upgrading to patched versions of GitLab that address this specific vulnerability, as the affected versions have been superseded by releases containing the necessary validation controls.