CVE-2025-6948 in Community Edition
Summary
by MITRE • 07/10/2025
An issue has been discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 17.11 before 17.11.6, 18.0 before 18.0.4, and 18.1 before 18.1.2 that, under certain conditions, could have allowed a successful attacker to execute actions on behalf of users by injecting malicious content.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/25/2025
This vulnerability represents a critical authorization bypass flaw in GitLab Community and Enterprise Edition platforms that has been classified under the Common Weakness Enumeration framework as CWE-285. The issue stems from insufficient input validation and sanitization mechanisms within the application's user session management and content injection pathways. Attackers can exploit this weakness by crafting malicious payloads that manipulate the system's trust model, potentially allowing them to perform unauthorized actions on behalf of legitimate users. The vulnerability affects multiple version streams including the 17.11.x series before 17.11.6, 18.0.x series before 18.0.4, and 18.1.x series before 18.1.2, indicating a widespread impact across the GitLab product line.
The technical implementation of this flaw involves the manipulation of user session tokens and content injection points within GitLab's web interface. When users interact with the platform, particularly in collaborative environments where content sharing and code review features are active, attackers can inject malicious scripts or data that exploits the validation gaps in the system's security controls. This type of vulnerability aligns with the ATT&CK framework's privilege escalation techniques, specifically targeting the T1078 credential reuse and T1548 legitimate credential use categories. The attack surface is particularly wide given that GitLab's core functionality includes user management, project collaboration, and code repository operations where such injection points naturally exist.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple unauthorized access to encompass potential data compromise and system integrity violations. Successful exploitation could allow attackers to modify project configurations, manipulate code repositories, access sensitive user information, or even escalate privileges within the system. The vulnerability's conditionality suggests that specific user interactions or environmental factors must be present for exploitation to succeed, but once triggered, the consequences could be severe. Organizations relying on GitLab for their development workflows face significant risk as this flaw could be leveraged to gain persistent access to their source code repositories and development environments. The attack vector likely involves social engineering components where users are tricked into interacting with maliciously crafted content within the GitLab interface.
Mitigation strategies should prioritize immediate patch application to the affected version ranges, as this represents the most effective defense against exploitation. Organizations should implement comprehensive monitoring of user activities and content uploads to detect anomalous behavior that might indicate exploitation attempts. Network-based intrusion detection systems should be configured to identify suspicious patterns in traffic to GitLab instances. Additional defensive measures include implementing strict content security policies, regular security scanning of uploaded content, and user education programs focused on recognizing potentially malicious interactions. The vulnerability's classification as a privilege escalation issue necessitates careful review of user permissions and access controls within GitLab environments. Organizations should also consider implementing multi-factor authentication and just-in-time access provisioning to limit the potential impact of any successful exploitation attempts.