CVE-2022-38183 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) CWE-862 vulnerability in code.gitea.io/gitea. A fix is available for code.gitea.io/gitea — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Gitea allowed assignment of private issues
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-2022-38183 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,636 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% 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
In Gitea before 1.16.9, it was possible for users to add existing issues to projects. Due to improper access controls, an attacker could assign any issue to any project in Gitea (there was no permission check for fetching the issue). As a result, the attacker would get access to private issue titles.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | code.gitea.io/gitea | all versions | 1.16.9go get code.gitea.io/gitea@v1.16.9 |
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 1.16.9 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-38183 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-2022-38183 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2022-38183. 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-2022-38183 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2022-38183 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.