CVE-2025-68940 is a low-severity (CVSS 3.1) CWE-863 vulnerability in code.gitea.io/gitea. A fix is available for code.gitea.io/gitea — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Gitea doesn't adequately enforce branch deletion permissions after merging a pull request.
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2025-68940.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
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 1.22.5, branch deletion permissions are not adequately enforced after merging a pull request.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | code.gitea.io/gitea | all versions | 1.22.5go get code.gitea.io/gitea@v1.22.5 |
Affected Products
giteagiteaDetection & 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 1.22.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2025-68940 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Put an independent control in front of the weakness: restrict the affected endpoint or interface to trusted networks, require an additional authentication factor or proxy-level check, and invalidate existing sessions and credentials in case the flaw has already been used.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
This vulnerability is rated Low for Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines. The flaw in Gitea, integrated with OpenShift Pipelines, allows a low-privileged attacker to delete branches without proper authorization after a pull request is merged. This could compromise the integrity and history of affected repositories.
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2025-68940 (CC BY 4.0)
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2025-68940 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.