Gitea: Branch Protection Bypass via PR Retargeting Preserves Stale official Approval Flag

Exploitation

No confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next marks exploitation only from CISA KEV.

CVSS

8.1 · CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H

EPSS

• CVE-2026-58439: 0.53% estimated exploitation activity in the next 30 days; percentile 44.55 (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-03). This is a model estimate, not proof of exploitation or customer exposure.

As published by the source; long descriptions are shortened.

Summary Gitea does not re-evaluate the official flag on existing pull request reviews when a PR's target branch is changed. An attacker with write access to a repository can obtain an official: true approval on a PR targeting an unprotected branch, then retarget the PR to a protected branch (e.g., master). The approval, which would have been official: false if submitted against the protected branch, is preserved and satisfies the protected branch's required approvals, allowing the attacker to merge without legitimate maintainer approval. - Confirmed on Gitea 1.25.4 (1.25.4+41-g96515c0f20) Vulnerability Details Root Cause When a review is submitted on a pull request, Gitea computes the official flag by checking whether the reviewer is in the target branch's approval whitelist (IsUserOfficialReviewer in models/git/protectedbranch.go). This flag is stored in the database as a boolean on the review record. When a PR's target branch is subsequently changed via ChangeTargetBranch…

Published by the source

27 Jul 2026, 15:32 UTC

Last modified by the source

27 Jul 2026, 17:00 UTC

Source last checked

26 Oct 2026, 15:27 UTC

1. Revision 2 · amended · 26 Oct 2026

   Amended from ghsa record GHSA-w5pg-649r-p6gg

2. Revision 1 · created · 24 Oct 2026

   Published from osv record GO-2026-6080

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# Patch Next advisory brief: CVE-2026-58439

Advisory: Gitea: Branch Protection Bypass via PR Retargeting Preserves Stale `official` Approval Flag
IDs: CVE-2026-58439, GHSA-w5pg-649r-p6gg
Record: https://patchnext.com/advisories/cve-2026-58439 (revision 2, source checked 26 Oct 2026, 15:27 UTC)
Inventory: none attached. This brief comes from a public page and does not say whether any deployment is affected.
Severity: High (CVSS 8.1)
Exploitation: no confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next confirms exploitation only from CISA KEV.
Vendor response: Vendor fix available; fixed versions by package: code.gitea.io/gitea 1.27.0. A vendor fix does not mean a deployment is fixed.

## Affected components
- Go code.gitea.io/gitea: affected < 1.27.0; fixed in 1.27.0

## Suggested inspection (read-only)
- Go code.gitea.io/gitea: check the installed version with your package manager.

## Supported action
Upgrade each affected component to a fixed version on its release line. For a transitive dependency, upgrade the parent package or add an override or constraint, then regenerate the lockfile. Redeploy every environment that ran an affected version.

## Required regression checks
- Run the test suite and a production build.
- Exercise the features that depend on code.gitea.io/gitea.
- Repeat the inspection and confirm that only fixed versions remain installed.

## Rollback considerations
- Keep the previous lockfile and deployment artifact. Rolling back reinstates the vulnerable version, so apply any documented mitigation while you fix forward.

## Unresolved questions
- Which deployments run an affected version?
- Exploitation status can change. Check again before lowering the priority.
- Mark the work resolved only after the fixed version is verified in production.

## Sources
- Verified: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/GO-2026-6080 (OSV record GO-2026-6080 lists affected ranges: Go code.gitea.io/gitea >=0)
- Verified: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-w5pg-649r-p6gg (GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-w5pg-649r-p6gg lists affected ranges: Go code.gitea.io/gitea >=0 <1.27.0)

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