Attack Surface: Authentication Bypass/Brute Force
- Description: Attackers attempt to gain unauthorized access by guessing passwords, exploiting weak authentication mechanisms, or bypassing authentication controls within Gitea's implementation.
- Gitea Contribution: Gitea provides the authentication interface and logic, including support for various authentication methods (local, LDAP, OAuth). Vulnerabilities in Gitea's code or misconfigurations of Gitea's settings can be exploited.
- Example: A vulnerability in Gitea's session management allows an attacker to hijack a user's session. Or, a flaw in Gitea's LDAP integration code allows unauthenticated access.
- Impact: Complete account takeover, access to private repositories, potential for lateral movement within the system.
- Risk Severity: Critical
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Developers: Implement robust rate limiting and account lockout policies within Gitea. Ensure secure handling of session tokens and cookies according to best practices. Thoroughly test all authentication methods and integrations for vulnerabilities. Provide clear documentation on secure configuration of Gitea's authentication features.
- Users/Admins: Enforce strong password policies (length, complexity, uniqueness) within Gitea's settings. Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all accounts, especially administrative ones if supported by Gitea. Regularly audit user accounts and permissions within Gitea. Monitor Gitea's login logs for suspicious activity.
Attack Surface: Authorization Bypass (Privilege Escalation)
- Description: An authenticated user gains access to resources or performs actions they are not authorized to access due to flaws in Gitea's authorization logic.
- Gitea Contribution: Gitea manages repository permissions, team memberships, and organization-level access controls. Bugs in Gitea's code can allow users to escalate their privileges.
- Example: A user with read-only access to a repository exploits a vulnerability in Gitea's permission checking code to gain write access.
- Impact: Unauthorized modification or deletion of code, access to sensitive data, potential for complete system compromise.
- Risk Severity: Critical
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Developers: Implement strict authorization checks in Gitea's code at every level (repository, organization, global). Follow the principle of least privilege. Thoroughly test all authorization logic, including edge cases and boundary conditions.
- Users/Admins: Regularly review and audit user permissions and team memberships within Gitea. Ensure that users only have the minimum necessary access as defined by Gitea's roles. Use Gitea's built-in roles and permissions system effectively.
Attack Surface: Git Command Injection
- Description: Attackers inject malicious Git commands into user-supplied input, leading to arbitrary code execution on the Gitea server due to improper input handling in Gitea.
- Gitea Contribution: Gitea interacts with the Git backend to perform repository operations. If Gitea's code does not properly sanitize user input, it can be used to inject malicious commands.
- Example: An attacker crafts a specially formatted repository name that, when processed by Gitea's code, executes arbitrary shell commands on the server.
- Impact: Complete server compromise, data exfiltration, potential for lateral movement to other systems.
- Risk Severity: Critical
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Developers: Never directly construct Git commands using unsanitized user input within Gitea's codebase. Use parameterized Git commands or libraries that provide safe command execution. Implement strict input validation and sanitization for all user-supplied data that interacts with the Git backend within Gitea. Regularly conduct security audits and penetration testing focused on command injection vulnerabilities.
- Users/Admins: This is primarily a developer-side mitigation. Keeping Gitea updated to the latest version is crucial.
Attack Surface: Webhook Abuse
- Description: Attackers exploit vulnerabilities in Gitea's webhook handling logic to trigger unauthorized actions or gain information.
- Gitea Contribution: Gitea provides a webhook system and the code to process incoming webhook requests. Vulnerabilities in this code can be exploited.
- Example: An attacker exploits a vulnerability in Gitea's webhook parsing code to bypass signature verification and trigger unauthorized actions.
- Impact: Unauthorized code execution, data breaches, disruption of services.
- Risk Severity: High
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Developers: Implement secure webhook secret management and robust signature verification within Gitea. Validate the source and content of webhook requests within Gitea's code. Limit the scope of actions that webhooks can trigger through Gitea's configuration.
- Users/Admins: Carefully configure webhook settings within Gitea, using strong secrets and restricting access to trusted sources. Regularly audit webhook configurations and Gitea's logs.
Attack Surface: Dependency Vulnerabilities (Directly Affecting Gitea)
- Description: Vulnerabilities in Go libraries directly used by Gitea's code are exploited to attack the system. This focuses on vulnerabilities that impact Gitea's functionality, not just general Go vulnerabilities.
- Gitea Contribution: Gitea's choice of dependencies and how it uses them directly impacts this risk.
- Example: A vulnerability in a Go library used by Gitea for its authentication process is exploited to bypass authentication.
- Impact: Varies depending on the vulnerability, but can range from information disclosure to complete system compromise.
- Risk Severity: High (potentially Critical)
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Developers: Regularly update Gitea to the latest version. Use a software composition analysis (SCA) tool to identify and track vulnerable dependencies specifically used by Gitea. Carefully vet new dependencies for security. Contribute to upstream projects to fix vulnerabilities.
- Users/Admins: Keep Gitea updated. Monitor security advisories for Gitea and its direct dependencies.