Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-68938

Access Control in Gitea ≤ 1.25.2

Published
26 December 2025
Modified
02 January 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 4.3
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:L
EPSS Score 0.0036 28th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-68938 is a medium-severity Incorrect Authorization (CWE-863) vulnerability in Gitea Gitea. Its CVSS base score is 4.3 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Data Destruction (T1485); ranked at the 28th 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)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Gitea before 1.25.2 mishandles authorization for deletion of releases.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1485 Data Destruction Impact
Adversaries may destroy data and files on specific systems or in large numbers on a network to interrupt availability to systems, services, and network resources.
Why these techniques?

Authorization bypass for release deletion directly enables unauthorized data destruction in the Gitea repository.

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

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-68940Same product: Gitea Gitea
CVE-2025-68941Same product: Gitea Gitea
CVE-2025-69413Same product: Gitea Gitea
CVE-2025-68944Same product: Gitea Gitea
CVE-2025-68939Same product: Gitea Gitea
CVE-2026-20750Same product: Gitea Gitea
CVE-2026-20888Same product: Gitea Gitea
CVE-2026-20736Same product: Gitea Gitea
CVE-2025-68945Same product: Gitea Gitea
CVE-2025-68942Same product: Gitea Gitea

Affected Assets

gitea
gitea
≤ 1.25.2

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • AC-3 Access Enforcement
  • AC-6 Least Privilege
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)
  • SI-4 System Monitoring
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

prevent

Directly enforces authorization decisions on release deletion operations, preventing the exact authorization bypass described in the CVE.

prevent

Restricts users to the minimum privileges required, limiting the impact of any flawed authorization logic for destructive release actions.

detect

Enables monitoring of privileged operations such as release deletion to identify unauthorized or anomalous activity stemming from the authorization flaw.

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.

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.

prevents

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

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