Description

Two SSRF findings in Gitea 1.26.2

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "7.7",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-13T17:17:26.193Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-13T17:17:26.193Z",
  "executiveSummary": "This security analysis addresses two Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) findings identified within the Gitea 1.26.2 product.\nSSRF vulnerabilities allow malicious actors to coerce the vulnerable application into initiating unauthorized outbound network requests toward internal or external resources.\nThe primary impact of these flaws includes potential exposure of internal network services, access to metadata endpoints, and unauthorized data exfiltration from behind perimeter network controls.\nThe affected system is Gitea version 1.26.2, which processes user-supplied input without adequate validation or sanitization before dispatching HTTP requests.\nRisk implications are significant, as successful exploitation may enable attackers to pivot deeper into internal infrastructure, interact with unauthenticated local services, and bypass network access control lists.\nAttacker capabilities require the ability to interact with specific input vectors exposed by the application that trigger outbound connections.\nDepending on the specific finding, exploitation may or may not require authentication or specific low-privileged access rights.\nProper input filtering, strict URL parsing, and network segmentation are critical to neutralizing the attack vector.",
  "technicalDetails": "The identified vulnerabilities stem from insufficient validation and sanitization of user-supplied URLs and network locators processed by the Gitea 1.26.2 application.\nThe root cause lies in the improper handling of outbound HTTP requests where the destination URI is derived from untrusted input without enforcing robust allowlisting mechanisms or blocking restricted IP address spaces.\nThe vulnerable components involve internal modules responsible for fetching remote resources, webhooks, or avatar/repository imports that initiate network calls.\nAffected versions are strictly confined to Gitea 1.26.2 based on the input description.\nThe attack flow typically begins when an authenticated or unauthenticated attacker submits a meticulously crafted payload containing a malicious URI or an internal IP address (such as localhost, 127.0.0.1, or cloud provider metadata services like 169.254.169.254) into a vulnerable input field or parameter.\nUpon submission, the vulnerable component parses the provided URL and attempts to establish an outbound connection using protocols such as HTTP or HTTPS.\nBecause the application fails to adequately restrict or validate the target destination against loopback interfaces, private subnet ranges (RFC 1918), or link-local addresses, the request is dispatched successfully.\nThe payload behavior forces the server to interact with unintended endpoints, potentially returning sensitive internal data back to the attacker or causing unintended state changes within internal systems.\nNetwork exposure is inherent to the application's functionality of handling web requests, exposing the attack surface to any network path that can reach the Gitea instance.\nPost-exploitation impact includes internal reconnaissance, unauthorized access to internal APIs, potential Remote Code Execution (RCE) via vulnerable internal services, and data leakage."
}