CVE-2026-20736
Published: 22 January 2026
Summary
CVE-2026-20736 is a high-severity Improper Access Control (CWE-284) vulnerability in Gitea Gitea. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Stored Data Manipulation (T1565.001); ranked at the 2.0th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Likely Mitigating ControlsAI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
The access control policy and procedures directly mandate and enforce proper access control mechanisms across the organization.
Device lock enforces restricted access until re-authentication, directly reducing unauthorized use of active sessions.
Supervision and review of access control activities directly detects and remediates improper access configurations or usages.
Explicitly identifying and documenting actions permitted without identification or authentication enforces proper access control boundaries by defining justified exceptions.
By automatically labeling outputs with security attributes, the control supports attribute-based enforcement and reduces exploitability of improper access control weaknesses.
Associating and retaining security attributes with data directly supports enforcement of access control decisions across storage, processing, and transmission.
Requiring prior authorization for each remote access type prevents improper access control over remote connections.
Requiring authorization of wireless access before allowing connections enforces proper access control for this access method.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Improper access control enables unauthorized deletion of stored repository attachments (Stored Data Manipulation) and supports removal of files/evidence (File Deletion).
NVD Description
Gitea does not properly verify repository context when deleting attachments. A user who previously uploaded an attachment to a repository may be able to delete it after losing access to that repository by making the request through a different repository…
more
they can access.
Deeper analysisAI
CVE-2026-20736 affects Gitea, an open-source self-hosted Git service, due to improper verification of repository context during attachment deletion. Specifically, the vulnerability allows a user who previously uploaded an attachment to a repository to delete it even after losing access to that repository. Published on 2026-01-22, it carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N) and maps to CWE-284 (Improper Access Control).
Any authenticated user with access to at least one repository can exploit this by crafting a delete request for an attachment from a different repository they previously had write access to but no longer do. Successful exploitation results in unauthorized deletion of attachments, enabling integrity violations such as removal of critical files or evidence without the owner's consent.
Gitea's security advisory (GHSA-jr6h-pwwp-c8g6) and release notes for version 1.25.4 confirm the issue was addressed in pull request #36320. Administrators should update to Gitea 1.25.4 or later to mitigate the vulnerability, as no workarounds are specified in the provided references.
Details
- CWE(s)