CVE-2025-3111 in Community Edition
Summary
by MITRE • 05/22/2025
An issue has been discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 10.2 before 17.10.7, 17.11 before 17.11.3, and 18.0 before 18.0.1. A lack of input validation in the Kubernetes integration could allow an authenticated user to cause denial of service..
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 05/24/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2025-3111 represents a critical denial of service weakness within GitLab Community and Enterprise editions that impacts a substantial range of versions. This issue stems from insufficient input validation mechanisms within the Kubernetes integration component of the platform, creating an exploitable condition that allows authenticated users to disrupt service availability. The affected versions span across multiple release lines including 10.2 through 17.9.6, 17.10 through 17.11.2, and 18.0 through 18.0.0, indicating a prolonged period during which this weakness remained unaddressed. The vulnerability specifically targets the Kubernetes integration functionality that enables GitLab to orchestrate and manage containerized applications within Kubernetes environments.
The technical flaw manifests through inadequate sanitization and validation of user-provided inputs when interacting with Kubernetes resources through GitLab's interface. An authenticated user with appropriate privileges can craft malicious input parameters that bypass normal validation checks, potentially causing the Kubernetes integration layer to crash or become unresponsive. This weakness operates at the application level where user inputs are processed without proper boundary checking or sanitization, allowing malformed or unexpected data to propagate through the system. The lack of input validation creates a pathway for attackers to inject data that can cause the underlying Kubernetes integration services to fail, resulting in complete service disruption for affected GitLab instances. This issue aligns with CWE-20, which describes improper input validation as a fundamental weakness in software security design.
The operational impact of CVE-2025-3111 extends beyond simple service interruption, as it can severely compromise the availability of GitLab's container orchestration capabilities within Kubernetes environments. Organizations relying on GitLab for CI/CD pipelines, container deployment, and infrastructure management face potential downtime that could affect development workflows, automated deployments, and continuous integration processes. The vulnerability is particularly dangerous in production environments where GitLab serves as a central hub for application deployment and management. Attackers can exploit this weakness to cause cascading failures throughout the system, potentially affecting multiple projects and users simultaneously. The authenticated nature of the exploit means that only users with existing access credentials can leverage this vulnerability, but this access level is often sufficient for malicious actors who have already compromised accounts or who can obtain legitimate credentials through social engineering or other means.
Organizations should prioritize immediate remediation by upgrading to the patched versions 17.10.7, 17.11.3, and 18.0.1 respectively, which contain the necessary input validation fixes. Network segmentation and access controls should be reviewed to limit the potential impact of compromised accounts, while monitoring systems should be enhanced to detect unusual patterns in Kubernetes integration usage. Security teams should implement additional input validation checks at the application level and consider deploying web application firewalls to detect and block malicious input patterns. The vulnerability demonstrates the importance of robust input validation in integration components and aligns with ATT&CK technique T1499.004 which covers network disruption through service availability attacks. Regular security assessments of integration points and comprehensive testing of input handling mechanisms should be conducted to prevent similar vulnerabilities from emerging in other components of the GitLab platform.