CVE-2026-52809

Summary

Summary Password-reset tokens are generated using conf.Auth.ActivateCodeLives (the account-activation lifetime), not conf.Auth.ResetPasswordCodeLives. The token lifetime is baked into the token itself at generation time and is re-extracted from the token at verification time, making RESETPASSWORDCODELIVES irrelevant to actual enforcement. When an administrator configures a shorter reset window (e.g., 10 minutes) for compliance or security reasons, reset tokens remain exploitable for the full activation lifetime instead, while the reset email falsely advertises the shorter expiry. Severity Medium (CVSS 3.1: 6.8) CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N Attack Vector: Network, the reset endpoint is reachable over HTTP/S. Attack Complexity: High, successful exploitation requires (1) the instance to be configured with RESETPASSWORDCODELIVES < ACTIVATECODELIVES, AND (2) the attacker to have intercepted the victim's reset token (e.g., from a compromised or shared email inbox). Privileges Required: None, no Gogs account is required. User Interaction: Required, the victim must have triggered a password-reset request. Scope: Unchanged, the impact is confined to the victim's Gogs account. Confidentiality Impact: High, successful exploitation leads to account takeover, exposing all private repositories and data. Integrity Impact: High, the attacker can change the victim's password and gain full write access. Availability Impact: None. Affected component internal/userx/userx.go, GenerateActivateCode() (line 39) internal/email/email.go, SendResetPasswordMail() (line 132) internal/route/user/auth.go, verifyUserActiveCode() (lines 426–439) and ResetPasswdPost() (line 621) CWE CWE-324: Use of a Key Past Its Expiration Date CWE-613: Insufficient Session Expiration Description The reset token lifetime is hardcoded to ActivateCodeLives at generation GenerateActivateCode (called for both account activation and password reset) bakes conf.Auth.ActivateCodeLives, not ResetPasswordCodeLives, into the token as a 6-digit field: CreateTimeLimitCode embeds the minutes value at positions 12–17 of the token: SendResetPasswordMail calls u.GenerateEmailActivateCode(u.Email()), which resolves to GenerateActivateCode, with no option to pass a different lifetime: ResetPasswordCodeLives is used only for display, not enforcement VerifyTimeLimitCode discards the minutes argument and re-extracts the lifetime directly from the token itself: The verifyUserActiveCode caller passes conf.Auth.ActivateCodeLives as minutes, but it makes no difference: ResetPasswdPost validates the reset token through verifyUserActiveCode, so it inherits the same flaw: ResetPasswordCodeLives appears only in email template data and in the admin config display, it has zero effect on actual token validation: Full execution chain Victim requests reset: POST /user/forgetpassword → SendResetPasswordMail generates a token embedding ActivateCodeLives = 180 at bytes 12–17. Email delivered: The reset email says "link valid for 10 minutes" (from ResetPwdCodeLives in the template) but the embedded lifetime is 180. RESETPASSWORDCODELIVES window closes: After 10 minutes the victim believes the link has expired. Attacker submits the token: POST /user/resetpassword?code=<TOKEN> → ResetPasswdPost → verifyUserActiveCode → VerifyTimeLimitCode extracts 000180 from the token → confirms the token has not yet reached the 180-minute mark → returns the user object → password is updated. Account takeover: Attacker sets a new password and authenticates as the victim. Proof of Concept Impact An administrator who sets RESETPASSWORDCODELIVES shorter than ACTIVATECODELIVES to limit the window of exposure for intercepted reset emails gets no security benefit from that configuration. Reset tokens remain valid for the full activation lifetime (default 3 hours), giving an attacker who has intercepted a reset email a much larger window to use it. The reset email actively misleads users by advertising a shorter expiry that is never enforced. All password-reset operations are affected; there is no per-user or per-request way to issue a correctly-expiring token. Recommended remediation Option 1: Add a ResetPasswordCodeLives-aware generation function (preferred) Introduce a dedicated code-generation path that passes conf.Auth.ResetPasswordCodeLives instead of ActivateCodeLives: Update email.User to expose this through the interface: Update SendResetPasswordMail to call it: Because VerifyTimeLimitCode reads the lifetime from the token itself, no change to the verification side is required, tokens generated with ResetPasswordCodeLives will automatically expire at the correct time. Option 2: Validate the extracted lifetime against the configured maximum Add a post-extraction check in VerifyTimeLimitCode or in the reset-specific verification function to reject tokens whose embedded lifetime exceeds ResetPasswordCodeLives: This is a defence-in-depth measure but does not fix the root cause; Option 1 is preferred. Credit This vulnerability was discovered and reported by bugbunny.ai.

Impact

Affected versions

Security releases

Remediation advice