Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-9825

Access Control in Gitlab 13.7.0 – 18.2.8

Public PoCAccess Control
Published
21 November 2025
Modified
02 December 2025
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.0
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0036 28th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-9825 is a medium-severity Missing Authorization (CWE-862) vulnerability in Gitlab Gitlab. Its CVSS base score is 5.0 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 28th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-4 (Information Flow Enforcement) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

GitLab has remediated an issue in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 13.7 to 18.2.8, 18.3 before 18.3.4, and 18.4 before 18.4.2 that could have allowed authenticated users without project membership to view sensitive manual CI/CD variables by querying the…

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GraphQL API.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
Why these techniques?

CWE-862 authz bypass enables unauthorized data access (escalation from non-member to sensitive CI vars) and can be reached via public GitLab app exploitation.

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

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-11989Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2025-5846Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2024-8114Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2025-2246Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2025-5315Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2024-12431Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2024-1539Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2023-4630Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2023-0805Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2025-1299Same product: Gitlab Gitlab

Affected Assets

gitlab
gitlab
13.7.0 — 18.2.8 · 13.7.0 — 18.2.8 · 18.3.0 — 18.3.4

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • AC-3 Access Enforcement
  • AC-6 Least Privilege
  • AC-4 Information Flow Enforcement
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

prevent

Directly enforces authorization checks so that only project members can retrieve sensitive CI/CD variables via the GraphQL API.

prevent

Ensures non-members receive no privileges to read manual CI/CD variables, limiting exposure to the minimum required access.

prevent

Controls information flow of sensitive variables so they are not disclosed through API queries to unauthorized users.

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 full match
prevents

Explicitly requires defining, enforcing, and reviewing authorizations and least privilege, directly preventing missing 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 authentication and credentials before any access occurs eliminates the absence of authorization checks that would otherwise allow an unauthenticated actor to reach protected resources.

prevents

Requiring formal authorization of every access request before rights are granted ensures that checks for required permissions are performed, preventing missing authorization checks from being introduced.

prevents

Mandatory authorization checks and central records of granted rights ensure that every access attempt is preceded by an explicit decision rather than relying on missing checks.

mitigates

Segregating the approval of access rights from their implementation provides an independent check that reduces the impact of missing authorization checks in the resulting system configuration.

detects

By requiring competent outsiders to verify that every function enforces the need-to-know principle, the control lowers the likelihood that missing authorization checks persist undetected.

prevents

Defining authorization responsibilities and reviewing risk-treatment progress throughout the project lifecycle catches missing authorization checks before the system is deployed.

References