Overview
The recent discovery of a critical vulnerability, CVE-2025-6948, in GitLab CE/EE has raised substantial concerns within the cybersecurity community. This vulnerability affects all versions of GitLab CE/EE from 17.11 before 17.11.6, 18.0 before 18.0.4, and 18.1 before 18.1.2. The importance of this issue lies in its potential to enable an attacker to execute actions on behalf of users by injecting malicious content under specific conditions. This type of vulnerability, if exploited, could lead to serious consequences such as system compromise or data leakage.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-6948
Severity: Critical (8.7 CVSS Score)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: Required
Impact: System compromise or data leakage through malicious content injection
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
GitLab CE | 17.11 to 17.11.5, 18.0 to 18.0.3, 18.1 to 18.1.1
GitLab EE | 17.11 to 17.11.5, 18.0 to 18.0.3, 18.1 to 18.1.1
How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability works by exploiting a programming error in GitLab CE/EE. This error allows an attacker, under certain conditions, to inject malicious content into the system. As a result, the attacker is able to execute actions on behalf of users, thereby gaining unauthorized access to sensitive information or resources. The exploitative content could be designed to steal user data, manipulate system settings, or perform other unauthorized actions that compromise system security and data integrity.
Conceptual Example Code
Below is a conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited. This might be done via a malicious HTTP POST request to a vulnerable endpoint:
POST /vulnerable/endpoint HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/json
{ "malicious_payload": "malicious code here" }In this example, the “malicious_payload” contains code designed to exploit the vulnerability, leading to the execution of unauthorized actions.
Mitigation Guidance
The immediate mitigation for this vulnerability is applying the vendor patch provided by GitLab. For those who cannot immediately deploy the patch, implementing a web application firewall (WAF) or intrusion detection system (IDS) could serve as a temporary mitigation measure. However, these should not be considered as long-term solutions, as they may not fully protect against all potential exploitation techniques. As such, it is highly recommended to apply the vendor patch as soon as possible to fully mitigate the risk associated with CVE-2025-6948.