Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-11984

Auth Bypass in Gitlab 13.1.0 – 18.4.6

Auth Bypass
Published
11 December 2025
Modified
23 December 2025
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 6.8
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0028 20th percentile
Risk Priority 42 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-11984 is a medium-severity Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel (CWE-288) vulnerability in Gitlab Gitlab. Its CVSS base score is 6.8 (Medium).

Operationally, ranked at the 20th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to IA-2 (Identification and Authentication (Organizational Users)) and SC-23 (Session Authenticity) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

A07:2025 Authentication Failures

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

GitLab has remediated an issue in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 13.1 before 18.4.6, 18.5 before 18.5.4, and 18.6 before 18.6.2 that could have allowed an authenticated user to bypass WebAuthn two-factor authentication by manipulating the session state under…

more

certain conditions.

CWE(s)
CWE-288

Related Threats

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-1747Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2025-0549Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2026-2745Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2026-0602Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2024-1525Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2026-4524Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2023-2030Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2026-13151Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2024-1211Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2023-5009Same product: Gitlab Gitlab

Affected Assets

gitlab
gitlab
13.1.0 — 18.4.6 · 13.1.0 — 18.4.6 · 18.5.0 — 18.5.4

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • IA-2 Identification and Authentication (Organizational Users)
  • SC-23 Session Authenticity
  • AC-3 Access Enforcement
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 7 hardening rules · 3 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V6.4.3
  • V6.6.1
  • V12.1.3

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

IA-2 Identification and Authentication (Organizational Users) good match
prevent

Directly requires identification and authentication (including MFA mechanisms such as WebAuthn) before granting access, blocking the described bypass.

SC-23 Session Authenticity good match
prevent

Protects authenticity of communications sessions, directly mitigating manipulation of session state to evade WebAuthn 2FA.

AC-3 Access Enforcement partial match
prevent

Enforces access decisions based on successful authentication, preventing use of a manipulated session that bypassed 2FA.

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.

PR.AA-03 full match
prevents

Requiring authentication on every channel and path directly eliminates alternate-path bypasses.

PR.AA-05 mostly match
prevents

Enforcing authorizations and least privilege across all access vectors prevents unauthenticated alternate paths.

PR.IR-01 mostly match
prevents

Protecting networks and environments from unauthorized logical access blocks bypass via undocumented channels.

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.8.29 Security testing in development and acceptance mostly match
detects

Security testing can detect alternate-path bypasses but does not prevent them in production.

A.8.5 Secure authentication mostly match
degrades

Secure authentication control directly mitigates bypass by requiring strong, consistent authentication on all paths.

A.5.15 Access control partial match
prevents

Access control policy directly addresses alternate authentication paths by requiring all channels to enforce authentication.

A.5.17 Authentication information partial match
degrades

Authentication information management ensures credentials and mechanisms are consistently applied across all access paths.

A.5.18 Access rights partial match
prevents

Access rights provisioning and review prevent bypass via unmonitored or alternate channels.

A.8.2 Privileged access rights partial match
prevents

Privileged access rights control reduces risk of bypass through elevated or alternate paths.

References