CVE-2023-7045 in Community Edition
Summary
by MITRE • 05/23/2024
A CSRF vulnerability exists within GitLab CE/EE from versions 13.11 before 16.10.6, from 16.11 before 16.11.3, from 17.0 before 17.0.1. By leveraging this vulnerability, an attacker could exfiltrate anti-CSRF tokens via the Kubernetes Agent Server (KAS).
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/28/2025
The vulnerability CVE-2023-7045 represents a critical cross-site request forgery weakness affecting GitLab Community and Enterprise editions across multiple version ranges. This flaw specifically targets the Kubernetes Agent Server component within GitLab, which serves as a bridge between GitLab and Kubernetes clusters. The vulnerability allows attackers to exploit the lack of proper anti-CSRF token validation mechanisms in the KAS communication pathway. The affected versions span from 13.11 through 16.10.5, 16.11 through 16.11.2, and 17.0 through 17.0.0, indicating a prolonged period of exposure for organizations utilizing GitLab's container orchestration capabilities. This vulnerability falls under the CWE-352 category, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery weaknesses in software applications. The operational impact is particularly severe as it enables attackers to harvest anti-CSRF tokens that are typically used to protect against unauthorized actions within web applications, potentially allowing for privilege escalation or unauthorized administrative operations.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from insufficient validation of request origins and token integrity within the Kubernetes Agent Server communication layer. When GitLab's KAS component processes requests from Kubernetes clusters, it fails to properly validate that the requests originate from legitimate sources within the GitLab environment. This oversight allows malicious actors to craft specially crafted requests that can trick the system into revealing anti-CSRF tokens used for authentication and authorization purposes. The vulnerability exploits the trust relationship between GitLab and its Kubernetes agents, where the system assumes that legitimate requests come from authorized cluster components. Attackers can leverage this weakness to perform unauthorized operations on behalf of legitimate users, particularly those with administrative privileges within the GitLab instance. The exploitation pathway involves intercepting or manipulating the communication between GitLab and Kubernetes agents, where the anti-CSRF tokens are transmitted in a manner that can be extracted and reused.
The operational implications of CVE-2023-7045 extend beyond simple token exfiltration, as the compromised anti-CSRF tokens can be used to execute unauthorized administrative actions within GitLab's Kubernetes integration features. This includes the potential to modify cluster configurations, deploy malicious workloads, or gain elevated privileges within the GitLab environment. The vulnerability is particularly dangerous in multi-tenant environments where multiple projects and clusters are managed through a single GitLab instance, as successful exploitation could lead to lateral movement and broader system compromise. Organizations using GitLab's Kubernetes integration for CI/CD pipelines, container orchestration, or cluster management are at significant risk. The attack surface is further expanded when considering that Kubernetes agents often operate with elevated privileges, making successful exploitation particularly damaging. This vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1531 which focuses on Establishing Persistence through Credential Access, and T1078 which addresses Valid Accounts for maintaining access within target systems.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2023-7045 require immediate patching of affected GitLab instances to versions 16.10.6, 16.11.3, or 17.0.1, respectively, depending on the current version in use. Organizations should also implement additional network-level protections such as ingress and egress filtering to monitor and restrict communication between GitLab and Kubernetes agents. Security teams should conduct comprehensive audits of their GitLab configurations to ensure proper CSRF protection mechanisms are in place and validate that anti-CSRF tokens are properly validated in all communication pathways. Network segmentation between GitLab and Kubernetes clusters can provide additional defense-in-depth measures, while monitoring for unusual patterns in KAS communications can help detect potential exploitation attempts. The remediation process should include verification that all affected GitLab instances have been properly updated and that no unauthorized access has occurred through the exploitation of this vulnerability. Organizations should also review their incident response procedures to ensure they can effectively respond to potential exploitation of this CSRF vulnerability within their container orchestration environments.