Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-9694

Gitlab 15.9.0 – 18.10.8

Published
11 June 2026
Modified
17 June 2026
CVSS Score v3.1 2.6
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0021 11th percentile
Risk Priority 15 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-9694 is a low-severity Improper Neutralization of Substitution Characters (CWE-153) vulnerability in Gitlab Gitlab. Its CVSS base score is 2.6 (Low).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 11th 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 SI-4 (System Monitoring) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

GitLab has remediated an issue in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 15.9 before 18.10.8, 18.11 before 18.11.5, and 19.0 before 19.0.2 that under certain conditions, could have allowed an unauthenticated user to impersonate the GitLab Support Bot and inject…

more

arbitrary content via a specially crafted Service Desk email reply due to improper neutralization in email template processing.

CWE(s)
CWE-153

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

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.
attack.mitre.org →
T1659 Content Injection Initial Access
Adversaries may gain access and continuously communicate with victims by injecting malicious content into systems through online network traffic.
attack.mitre.org →
Why these techniques?

Vulnerability enables unauthenticated content injection via exploitation of public-facing GitLab Service Desk email processing.

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

Likely ATT&CK TechniquesAI

Techniques this vulnerability likely enables, inferred from its description, weakness type, and attributed-actor tradecraft. Confidence is per-technique.

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Accessconfidence: HIGH
Unauthenticated attacker can inject arbitrary content into Service Desk email replies, enabling exploitation of a public-facing application.
attack.mitre.org →
T1659 Content Injection Initial Accessconfidence: HIGH
Improper neutralization in email template processing allows injection of arbitrary content into outbound messages.
attack.mitre.org →
inferred from description + CWE · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-1080Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2026-1516Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2024-9870Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2026-0723Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2026-12635Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2026-2238Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2026-2726Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2026-3848Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2025-8405Same product: Gitlab Gitlab
CVE-2026-2601Same product: Gitlab Gitlab

Affected Assets

gitlab
gitlab
15.9.0 — 18.10.8 · 15.9.0 — 18.10.8 · 18.11.0 — 18.11.5

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • SI-10 Information Input Validation
  • SI-7 Software, Firmware, and Information Integrity
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)
  • SI-7 Software, Firmware, and Information Integrity
  • SI-4 System Monitoring
Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

—

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V1.2.9
  • V1.2.10

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

SI-10 Information Input Validation good match
prevent

Requires validation and sanitization of all input (including Service Desk email replies) to block substitution-character injection into templates.

SI-7 Software, Firmware, and Information Integrity partial match
preventdetect

Mandates integrity verification of email templates and rendered content, preventing or detecting unauthorized modifications from crafted replies.

SI-4 System Monitoring partial match
detect

Enables monitoring of inbound email processing events to identify anomalous or impersonating Service Desk messages.

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.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly require input validation and neutralization of substitution characters.

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.8.29 Security testing in development and acceptance mostly match
detects

Security testing can detect substitution-character flaws but does not itself implement neutralization.

A.8.25 Secure development life cycle partial match
prevents

Secure development lifecycle mandates input validation and sanitization that directly prevents substitution-character injection.

A.8.26 Application security requirements partial match
prevents

Application security requirements explicitly call for neutralizing special elements before downstream processing.

A.8.28 Secure coding partial match
prevents

Secure coding standards require proper neutralization of substitution characters in all input handling.

References