Security Resilience

CVE-2023-6159

Gitlab 12.7.0 – 16.6.6

Published
26 January 2024
Modified
21 November 2024
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 6.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0099 62th percentile
Risk Priority 52 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2023-6159 is a medium-severity Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity (CWE-1333) vulnerability in Gitlab Gitlab. Its CVSS base score is 6.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique OS Credential Dumping (T1003); ranked in the top 38% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

An issue has been discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 12.7 prior to 16.6.6, 16.7 prior to 16.7.4, and 16.8 prior to 16.8.1 It was possible for an attacker to trigger a Regular Expression Denial of Service via…

more

a `Cargo.toml` containing maliciously crafted input.

CWE(s)
CWE-1333

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1003 OS Credential Dumping Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to dump credentials to obtain account login and credential material, normally in the form of a hash or a clear text password.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.003 NTDS Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access or create a copy of the Active Directory domain database in order to steal credential information, as well as obtain other information about domain members such as devices, users, and access rights.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.006 DCSync Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access credentials and other sensitive information by abusing a Windows Domain Controller's application programming interface (API)(Citation: Microsoft DRSR Dec 2017) (Citation: Microsoft GetNCCChanges) (Citati…
attack.mitre.org →
T1005 Data from Local System Collection
Adversaries may search local system sources, such as file systems, configuration files, local databases, virtual machine files, or process memory, to find files of interest and sensitive data prior to Exfiltration.
attack.mitre.org →
T1008 Fallback Channels Command And Control
Adversaries may use fallback or alternate communication channels if the primary channel is compromised or inaccessible in order to maintain reliable command and control and to avoid data transfer thresholds.
attack.mitre.org →
T1012 Query Registry Discovery
Adversaries may interact with the Windows Registry to gather information about the system, configuration, and installed software.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-3909Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2025-2937Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2023-2199Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2023-3210Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2024-2651Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2023-2132Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2024-3114Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2024-1963Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2023-6736Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2024-2829Same product: Gitlab Gitlab

Affected Assets

gitlab
gitlab
16.8.0 · 12.7.0 — 16.6.6 · 12.7.0 — 16.6.6 · 16.7.0 — 16.7.4

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

SA-11 Developer Testing and Evaluation good match

Developer testing and evaluation can discover inefficient regex patterns via performance or static analysis.

SA-15 Development Process, Standards, and Tools partial match

Development standards and tools can require safe regex construction and forbid known exponential patterns.

SC-5 Denial-of-service Protection partial match

Denial-of-service protections limit resource exhaustion caused by expensive regex evaluation.

SI-10 Information Input Validation partial match

Input validation can constrain data that would otherwise trigger worst-case regex complexity.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

ID.RA-01 partial match
blocks

Vulnerability identification processes can discover ReDoS issues in existing code but do not stop their introduction.

PR.PS-06 partial match
blocks

Secure SDLC practices directly prevent inefficient regex via reviews, static analysis, and safe libraries.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

A.5.14 Information transfer partial match
removes
A.5.15 Access control partial match
removes
A.5.16 Identity management partial match
removes
A.5.17 Authentication information partial match
removes
A.5.18 Access rights partial match
removes
A.8.10 Information deletion partial match
removes

References