CVE-2026-104632 in Gitea
Summary
by MITRE • 10/06/2026
Gitea Actions blocks the jobs of workflow runs from first-time fork pull request contributors until a maintainer approves the run. The rerun path only required a run to be finished and built the new attempt's jobs without considering the pending approval, so when a user with Actions write access cancelled a run that was awaiting approval and then re-ran it, the new jobs were created as waiting rather than blocked while the run still recorded that approval was required. Cancelling and re-running stale fork checks is a routine action that does not involve the approval control, so where Actions is enabled and a matching runner is registered, workflow code taken from the fork pull request head could run on the repository's runners without an explicit approval.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/07/2026
The vulnerability in Gitea Actions represents a critical logic flaw within the security controls governing workflow execution for external contributors. Specifically, the system implements a safeguard that blocks jobs initiated by first-time fork pull request contributors until a maintainer explicitly approves the run. This mechanism is designed to prevent untrusted code from executing on the repository's infrastructure without oversight. However, the implementation of this control contains a race condition and state management error when interacting with the rerun functionality. The flaw arises because the path for re-running a workflow only verifies that the previous execution has finished or been cancelled, but it fails to check whether the original run required maintainer approval before generating new jobs.
When an attacker cancels a pending workflow run that is awaiting approval and subsequently triggers a rerun of that same stale pull request check, the system creates new job instances in a waiting state rather than maintaining the blocked status associated with the unapproved origin. Although the underlying record for the overall run still indicates that approval was required, the newly spawned jobs are not subjected to this restriction. This discrepancy allows workflow code extracted from the head of the fork pull request to execute on the repository's runners without explicit maintainer consent. The issue is particularly dangerous because cancelling and re-running stale checks is a routine operational action for developers attempting to refresh test results or resolve transient failures, meaning an attacker can exploit this behavior through standard interaction patterns rather than requiring obscure edge-case inputs.
From a technical perspective, this vulnerability aligns with CWE-841 Improper Enforcement of Behavioral Workflow, as the system fails to maintain consistent security constraints across state transitions within the workflow lifecycle. The failure lies in the lack of persistent context propagation from the initial run's approval requirement to any subsequent attempts derived from it. This allows untrusted code execution on privileged infrastructure, which corresponds to ATT&CK technique T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter if the executed workflows contain arbitrary scripts or commands that can be leveraged for further exploitation. The impact includes potential unauthorized access to sensitive repository data, compromise of build artifacts, and lateral movement within the CI/CD pipeline environment using compromised runner credentials.
Mitigation strategies must focus on ensuring that approval requirements are strictly enforced regardless of how new jobs are instantiated. Developers should modify the rerun logic to explicitly check the parent run's status regarding maintainer approvals before allowing any new job creation for fork-based pull requests. Additionally, implementing a stateless verification mechanism where each job independently validates its authorization context can prevent such bypasses. Until patched, repository maintainers should disable Actions for forks or require explicit approval settings that cannot be circumvented by rerunning jobs. Regular auditing of workflow configurations and restricting write access to critical branches are also recommended defensive measures to reduce the attack surface associated with external contributions.