CVE-2026-25038 in Gitea
Summary
by MITRE • 07/04/2026
Gitea 1.26.2 allows unauthorized users to access labels of private organizations.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/04/2026
This vulnerability in Gitea version 1.26.2 represents a critical access control flaw that undermines the security model of private organization repositories. The issue stems from insufficient authorization checks within the application's label management system, allowing unauthorized users to retrieve label information from private organizations without proper authentication or permission validation. This weakness directly violates fundamental security principles governing data isolation and access restriction in software development platforms.
The technical implementation flaw occurs at the application layer where the system fails to properly verify user permissions before exposing label metadata associated with private organizational entities. When a user attempts to access label information through the API or web interface, the system does not adequately validate whether the requester has legitimate access rights to the target organization's resources. This misconfiguration creates an information disclosure vulnerability that can be exploited by attackers to gather sensitive metadata about private repositories and their associated labeling schemes.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple information disclosure, as it provides attackers with insights into organizational structure, project naming conventions, and development practices within private repositories. An attacker could potentially use this information to craft more targeted attacks against specific projects or identify high-value targets within the organization. The vulnerability affects all users who can access the Gitea instance without proper authentication, making it particularly dangerous in environments where the platform serves multiple organizations with varying security requirements.
Security practitioners should immediately implement mitigations including updating to patched versions of Gitea 1.26.3 or later, which contain the necessary authorization controls for label access. Additionally, organizations should review their current access policies and ensure that proper authentication mechanisms are enforced before allowing any operations on private organization resources. This vulnerability aligns with CWE-284 Access Control Issues and could be categorized under ATT&CK technique T1566 Credential Access through information gathering activities. Network segmentation and monitoring of unauthorized API access attempts should also be implemented to detect potential exploitation attempts.
Organizations utilizing Gitea platforms must conduct comprehensive security audits of their repository configurations and implement proper role-based access controls. The vulnerability demonstrates the critical importance of validating all user permissions at every interaction point within the application, particularly for sensitive metadata operations. Regular security testing and vulnerability assessments should include thorough examination of authorization mechanisms across all application components to prevent similar issues from emerging in other areas of the platform.
This issue highlights the broader challenge of maintaining proper access control boundaries in complex software platforms where multiple organizations share the same instance. The flaw represents a failure in the principle of least privilege, where users receive more access than necessary for their legitimate operations. Proper implementation of authorization checks should be enforced at every API endpoint that exposes organizational data, ensuring that sensitive information remains protected from unauthorized access attempts.