Summary
Gitea: Unbounded Arch package file metadata can cause resource amplification in Gitea package uploads
Impact
An authenticated user with permission to publish Arch packages may be able to upload an archive containing a valid .PKGINFO file and a large number of empty regular file entries.
In my local test environment, Gitea accepted such packages and stored the full file list as package metadata. This caused the server-side metadata size and generated repository files index content to become much larger than the compressed upload size.
The practical impact appears to be resource amplification affecting:
- CPU usage during parsing and index generation
- memory usage during metadata handling
- database storage due to large serialized metadata
- repository index generation size and processing time
This seems most relevant for instances where untrusted or semi-trusted users are allowed to publish packages.
The application allocates resources such as memory, threads, or file descriptors based on untrusted input without enforcing a cap. Typical impact: resource exhaustion leading to denial of service.
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-2026-59763? CVE-2026-59763 is a medium-severity allocation of resources without limits or throttling vulnerability in code.gitea.io/gitea (go), affecting versions < 1.27.0. It is fixed in 1.27.0. The application allocates resources such as memory, threads, or file descriptors based on untrusted input without enforcing a cap.
- Which versions of code.gitea.io/gitea are affected by CVE-2026-59763? code.gitea.io/gitea (go) versions < 1.27.0 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-59763? Yes. CVE-2026-59763 is fixed in 1.27.0. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2026-59763 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2026-59763 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-2026-59763 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-2026-59763? Upgrade
code.gitea.io/giteato 1.27.0 or later.