CVE-2026-25718 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.1) CWE-59 vulnerability in code.gitea.io/gitea. A fix is available for code.gitea.io/gitea — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Gitea template repository generation mishandles symlinked paths
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- 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-2026-25718.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-25718 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,386 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
Gitea versions before 1.25.5 mishandle path resolution during template repository generation, allowing template processing to read or write through symlinked or otherwise non-regular paths.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | code.gitea.io/gitea | all versions | 1.25.5go get code.gitea.io/gitea@v1.25.5 |
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 1.25.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-25718 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-25718 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.