CVE-2022-30781 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-116 vulnerability in code.gitea.io/gitea. 6 public exploit references exist, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for code.gitea.io/gitea — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Shell command injection in gitea
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2022-30781 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE sits: patch-first territory.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 378,156 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 50–90% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
code.gitea.io/giteaReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Gitea before 1.16.7 does not escape the shell out for git fetch remote allowing for shell command injection
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | code.gitea.io/gitea | all versions | 1.16.7go get code.gitea.io/gitea@v1.16.7 |
Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Gitea 1.16.6 - Remote Code Execution (RCE) (Metasploit)
by samguy · Sep 15, 2022
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for code.gitea.io/gitea, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update code.gitea.io/gitea to 1.16.7 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-30781 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2022-30781 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2022-30781. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-30781 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2022-30781 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.