CVE-2024-8186 in Community Edition
Summary
by MITRE • 03/03/2025
An issue has been discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 16.6 before 17.7.6, 17.8 before 17.8.4, and 17.9 before 17.9.1. An attacker could inject HMTL into the child item search potentially leading to XSS in certain situations.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/03/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2024-8186 represents a cross-site scripting flaw within GitLab Community and Enterprise Edition platforms that impacts a substantial range of versions. This security weakness exists in the search functionality of child items within GitLab's interface, specifically affecting versions prior to the mentioned patched releases. The flaw allows malicious actors to inject HTML content into search results, creating potential pathways for unauthorized code execution within users' browsers. This issue particularly concerns the handling of user-supplied input during search operations on child items, which are commonly used in project management, issue tracking, and repository navigation within GitLab's web interface.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability stems from inadequate input sanitization and output encoding mechanisms within GitLab's search processing pipeline. When users perform searches on child items such as issues, merge requests, or other nested objects within projects, the system fails to properly escape or validate special characters that could be interpreted as HTML or JavaScript code. This processing gap enables attackers to craft malicious search queries containing HTML injection payloads that get rendered in the search results page. The vulnerability manifests when the application displays search results without sufficient sanitization, allowing the injected HTML to execute in the context of the victim's browser session. This type of flaw directly maps to CWE-79 which categorizes improper neutralization of input during web output, commonly known as cross-site scripting.
The operational impact of CVE-2024-8186 extends beyond simple data exposure, potentially enabling attackers to perform session hijacking, steal sensitive information, or redirect users to malicious websites. An attacker with access to a GitLab instance could leverage this vulnerability to inject malicious scripts that could capture user credentials, manipulate the GitLab interface, or execute unauthorized actions on behalf of legitimate users. The vulnerability is particularly concerning in environments where GitLab is used for collaborative development, as it could be exploited to compromise entire development workflows. The risk is amplified when considering that many organizations use GitLab for managing sensitive source code repositories, issue tracking systems, and continuous integration pipelines where such an attack could lead to complete compromise of development environments. This vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1059.007 which describes the use of script-based payloads, and T1566 which covers social engineering through malicious content delivery.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2024-8186 require immediate implementation of version upgrades to the patched releases mentioned in the advisory. Organizations should prioritize updating their GitLab installations to versions 17.7.6, 17.8.4, or 17.9.1 depending on their current version. Additionally, administrators should implement enhanced input validation measures and consider deploying web application firewalls to monitor and filter suspicious search queries. Regular security audits of GitLab configurations and user access controls should be conducted to minimize the attack surface. The vulnerability also underscores the importance of maintaining up-to-date security practices, including regular vulnerability assessments and penetration testing of development platforms. Organizations should also consider implementing security awareness training for developers who interact with GitLab to prevent accidental exploitation through malformed input or suspicious search queries.