Critical Gitea Flaw Under Active Exploitation, Researchers Warn
Threat actors are exploiting a vulnerability in Gitea’s reverse-proxy authentication mechanism to access internet-accessible instances by supplying only a valid username.
Specific to Gitea’s official Docker images, the critical-severity security defect is tracked as CVE-2026-20896 (CVSS score of 9.8) and can be exploited with a single HTTP header, Sysdig Sr. Director of Threat Research Michael Clark says.
The issue exists because, in Gitea Docker images before 1.26.3, the default settings allow connections from any source IP address instead of enforcing an allowlist, security researcher Ali Mustafa, who was credited for finding the bug, explains.
If placed behind a proxy, Gitea should trust only a header set by the proxy when reverse-proxy authentication is enabled. Because of the flaw, anyone who could provide a valid username in a header could connect to a vulnerable instance, bypassing authentication.
“Any process that can reach the Gitea container’s HTTP port directly —...
Copyright of this story solely belongs to securityweek.com. To see the full text click HERE
