CVE-2025-2045 in Enterprise Edition
Summary
by MITRE • 03/06/2025
Improper authorization in GitLab EE affecting all versions from 17.7 prior to 17.7.6, 17.8 prior to 17.8.4, 17.9 prior to 17.9.1 allow users with limited permissions to access to potentially sensitive project analytics data.
Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.
Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/06/2025
This vulnerability represents a critical authorization flaw in GitLab Enterprise Edition that undermines the platform's access control mechanisms. The issue affects multiple version streams including 17.7.x prior to 17.7.6, 17.8.x prior to 17.8.4, and 17.9.x prior to 17.9.1, indicating a widespread impact across the GitLab enterprise product line. The flaw allows users with limited permissions to potentially access sensitive project analytics data that should be restricted to authorized personnel only. This represents a direct violation of the principle of least privilege and could enable unauthorized information disclosure within development environments where GitLab serves as the primary code repository and collaboration platform.
The technical nature of this vulnerability stems from inadequate validation of user permissions when accessing project analytics functionality. When users attempt to retrieve analytics data through the GitLab interface or API endpoints, the system fails to properly verify whether the requesting user possesses sufficient authorization levels to view the specific metrics and reports being accessed. This authorization bypass occurs at the application layer where the access control checks are insufficiently enforced, allowing users with roles such as reporters, guests, or members with restricted permissions to gain access to comprehensive project analytics that typically require administrator or maintainer level privileges. The vulnerability manifests as a failure in the authorization decision process, which is categorized under CWE-285 in the Common Weakness Enumeration catalog.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple information disclosure to potentially compromise the security posture of organizations relying on GitLab for their source code management and collaboration needs. Project analytics data often includes sensitive information such as code coverage statistics, build performance metrics, security scan results, and user activity patterns that could reveal development practices, project timelines, or potential security vulnerabilities. Attackers exploiting this flaw could gain insights into development processes, identify potential attack vectors, or discover sensitive project information that could be leveraged for further exploitation. This vulnerability directly aligns with ATT&CK technique T1213.002 which involves data from information repositories, and represents a significant risk to organizations using GitLab as part of their DevOps pipeline.
Organizations affected by this vulnerability should immediately implement mitigations including upgrading to the patched versions 17.7.6, 17.8.4, or 17.9.1 respectively, depending on their current GitLab version. Additional defensive measures include reviewing and tightening access control policies within GitLab, implementing network segmentation to limit access to GitLab instances, and conducting thorough audits of user permissions to ensure that only authorized personnel have access to sensitive project analytics. Security teams should also monitor for unusual access patterns in GitLab analytics data and implement logging controls that can detect unauthorized access attempts. The vulnerability serves as a reminder of the critical importance of proper authorization implementation in enterprise software systems and the need for regular security assessments of access control mechanisms.