CVE-2022-42968: Gitea Argument Injection Vulnerability

Background

Gitea is an open-source self-hosted Git service written in Go. It provides a lightweight interface for managing repositories, users, and organizations. Gitea is widely used for version control and collaboration in software development projects. However, Gitea versions prior to 1.17.3 are vulnerable to an Argument Injection vulnerability.

Vulnerability Detail

The Argument Injection vulnerability in Gitea arises from the lack of proper sanitization and escaping of refs in the git backend. This allows malicious actors to manipulate arguments passed to git commands, leading to potential command injection attacks. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the user running the Gitea application. The impact of such an attack could be severe, including unauthorized access, data manipulation, or even complete system compromise.

go get github.com/go-gitea/gitea@v1.8.3

go get github.com/go-gitea/gitea@v1.17.3

Workaround

As a temporary workaround, users can implement input validation and sanitization measures in their own code to prevent the injection of malicious arguments. It is crucial to carefully validate and escape any user-supplied input before passing it to git commands. Here is an example of how input validation can be performed in Go:

def func executeGitCommand(ref string) {
  // Validate and sanitize the ref input
  if strings.Contains(ref, "..") {
    log.Fatal("Invalid ref")
  }

  // Execute the git command with the sanitized ref
  cmd := exec.Command("git", "checkout", ref)
  err := cmd.Run()
  if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
  }
}

Conclusion

The Argument Injection vulnerability in Gitea poses a significant security risk, allowing attackers to execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the Gitea user. It is crucial to promptly update Gitea installations to version 1.17.3 or later to mitigate this vulnerability. Additionally, implementing input validation and sanitization measures can provide temporary protection. For further assistance and support in vulnerability remediation, please contact DevNack.com.

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