CVE-2026-25038: Gitea Information Disclosure Vulnerability

CVE-2026-25038 Overview

CVE-2026-25038 is an information disclosure vulnerability in Gitea 1.26.2. The flaw allows unauthorized users to access labels belonging to private organizations. This exposes metadata that should be restricted to authenticated members of the organization.

The issue is classified under [CWE-200: Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor]. Gitea addressed the vulnerability in the 1.26.3 release. Because the affected endpoint is network-accessible without authentication, remote attackers can query private organization labels directly over HTTP.

Critical Impact
Unauthenticated remote attackers can retrieve labels from private Gitea organizations, exposing project metadata, workflow structure, and potentially sensitive internal categorizations.

Affected Products

Gitea 1.26.2
Earlier 1.26.x releases prior to 1.26.3
Self-hosted Gitea deployments exposing the affected API endpoint

Discovery Timeline

2026-07-03 - CVE-2026-25038 published to NVD
2026-07-07 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2026-25038

Vulnerability Analysis

Gitea is a self-hosted Git service written in Go. The 1.26.2 release contains an access control flaw in the code path that returns organization labels. The endpoint fails to verify whether the requesting user has permission to view the parent organization before returning label data.

As a result, an unauthenticated HTTP request can enumerate labels belonging to organizations marked as private. Labels in Gitea are used to categorize issues and pull requests across repositories owned by an organization. Their contents can reveal internal project names, security ticket categories, workflow states, and other operational details.

The fix was merged in Gitea Pull Request #38151 and shipped in Gitea Release v1.26.3. Details are documented in GitHub Security Advisory GHSA-v73x-hx65-6pf4.

Root Cause

The root cause is a missing authorization check on the organization label handler. The code retrieved and returned label records without validating the visibility scope of the owning organization against the requester's session or token. Private organizations rely on this scope check to gate access to their metadata.

Attack Vector

An attacker sends an HTTP request to the affected label endpoint on a vulnerable Gitea instance. No credentials, user interaction, or elevated privileges are required. The server responds with label data for private organizations, disclosing information that should be restricted. See the Gitea Release Announcement for the vendor's summary.

No verified public exploit code is available. The vulnerability mechanism is documented in the linked security advisory rather than reproduced here.

Detection Methods for CVE-2026-25038

Indicators of Compromise

Unauthenticated HTTP requests to Gitea organization label API endpoints from unexpected source addresses
Access log entries referencing private organization slugs from clients that never authenticated
Sudden spikes in requests enumerating multiple organization names against label routes

Detection Strategies

Review Gitea access logs for HTTP 200 responses to organization label endpoints where no session cookie or API token was presented
Correlate requests against the list of organizations configured as private in the Gitea database
Alert on scripted enumeration patterns targeting /api/v1/orgs/{org}/labels paths

Monitoring Recommendations

Forward Gitea web server and application logs to a centralized log platform for retention and query
Baseline normal API traffic volumes per source address and alert on deviations
Monitor for the Gitea version banner to confirm which instances remain on 1.26.2 or earlier

How to Mitigate CVE-2026-25038

Immediate Actions Required

Upgrade all Gitea instances to version 1.26.3 or later without delay
Inventory internet-exposed Gitea servers and prioritize those first
Audit access logs for prior unauthorized queries against private organization label endpoints

Patch Information

Gitea released version 1.26.3 with the authorization fix from Pull Request #38151. Administrators should update binaries or container images to 1.26.3 or 1.26.4. Review the release notes before deploying to production.

Workarounds

Restrict network access to Gitea instances using a reverse proxy or WAF to block unauthenticated requests to organization label endpoints
Require authentication at the proxy layer for all API paths until the upgrade is applied
Temporarily set sensitive organizations to a state that avoids storing labels containing confidential terms

bash

# Example reverse proxy rule to require auth on the affected endpoint
location ~ ^/api/v1/orgs/.+/labels$ {
    auth_request /auth-check;
    proxy_pass http://gitea_backend;
}