Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-6168

Access Control in Gitlab 18.0.0 – 18.0.4

Access Control
Published
10 July 2025
Modified
17 June 2026
CVSS Score v3.1 2.7
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0031 23th percentile
Risk Priority 15 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-6168 is a low-severity Incorrect Authorization (CWE-863) vulnerability in Gitlab Gitlab. Its CVSS base score is 2.7 (Low).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Domain Accounts (T1078.002); ranked at the 23th 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 AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-6 (Least Privilege) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

A01:2025 Broken Access Control

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

An issue has been discovered in GitLab EE affecting all versions from 18.0 before 18.0.4 and 18.1 before 18.1.2 that could have allowed authenticated maintainers to bypass group-level user invitation restrictions by sending crafted API requests.

CWE(s)
CWE-863

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1078.002 Domain Accounts Stealth
Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of a domain account as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion.
attack.mitre.org →
Why these techniques?

The vulnerability allows authenticated maintainers to bypass group-level invitation restrictions via crafted API requests, enabling unauthorized account creation or addition of users to groups (T1078.002 Domain Accounts).

Confidence: MEDIUM · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-7296Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2025-0516Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2026-2726Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2023-4658Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2026-6269Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2023-5106Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2023-3979Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2023-3509Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2025-11865Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2024-6323Same product: Gitlab Gitlab

Affected Assets

gitlab
gitlab
18.0.0 — 18.0.4 · 18.1.0 — 18.1.2

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • AC-3 Access Enforcement
  • AC-6 Least Privilege
  • SI-10 Information Input Validation
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 5 hardening rules · 3 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

—

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

AC-3 Access Enforcement good match
prevent

Directly enforces authorization checks on group invitation operations so that maintainers cannot bypass restrictions via crafted API requests.

AC-6 Least Privilege partial match
prevent

Limits maintainer privileges to only the minimum required actions, reducing the impact of any authorization bypass on invitation flows.

SI-10 Information Input Validation partial match
prevent

Validates API request parameters and context to reject malformed or unauthorized invitation attempts before policy decisions are reached.

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-05 mostly match
prevents

Defining, enforcing, and reviewing access authorizations and least privilege directly prevents incorrect authorization checks.

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.5.15 Access control partial match
prevents

Requiring consistency between access rights and classification plus formal approval steps ensures that the authorization logic correctly distinguishes between entities that should and should not be granted access.

A.5.18 Access rights partial match
prevents

Enforcing policy-driven approval and role-change reviews stops incorrect or stale authorization decisions from remaining in effect after job changes or terminations.

A.8.3 Information access restriction partial match
prevents

By tying access rights to identity, device, location and classification, the control reduces the likelihood that an authorization decision will be based on an incorrect or bypassed policy.

References