Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:NSummary
CVE-2025-68942 is a medium-severity Cross-site Scripting (CWE-79) vulnerability in Gitea Gitea. Its CVSS base score is 5.4 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Browser Session Hijacking (T1185); ranked at the 13th 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 SI-10 (Information Input Validation) and SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-205413
Vulnerability Data
Gitea before 1.22.2 allows XSS because the search input box (for creating tags and branches) is v-html instead of v-text.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Stored/reflected XSS in web UI directly enables browser session hijacking and theft of web session cookies via script execution in victim context.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Directly requires validation and sanitization of untrusted input before it is rendered, preventing the unsafe v-html usage that enables this reflected/stored XSS.
Mandates developer security testing (including dynamic and static analysis) that would detect unsafe template rendering patterns such as v-html on user-controlled search fields.
Requires application of secure engineering principles (output encoding, context-aware escaping) during design and implementation, directly addressing the v-html vs. v-text mistake.
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.
Secure SDLC practices directly target introduction of XSS via coding standards/testing (mostly), yet the single broad outcome leaves many specific neutralization vectors unaddressed (partial).
Patching and EOL replacement can remediate known XSS instances in libraries or frameworks (partial) but do nothing to enforce input neutralization in application code (none).
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.
Secure-coding testing and automated code-analysis tools are applied to detect improper neutralization of script-related content during web-page generation.
Knowledge exchange on emerging attack techniques and patches reduces the likelihood that cross-site scripting flaws remain unaddressed in deployed applications.
Operational indicators of compromise for web-application attacks can be incorporated into WAF or input-filtering rules, lowering the likelihood that unsanitized data reaches the browser.
Requiring language-specific secure-coding standards and automated scanning during the SDLC catches missing output encoding or improper neutralization of untrusted data before the software reaches production.
Secure-coding standards, SAST scans and removal of insecure code samples together eliminate the failure to neutralize script content that produces cross-site scripting flaws.
Webpage malware scanning and block-listing of known malicious sites reduce the likelihood that reflected or stored script payloads reach a user’s browser.