CVE-2026-56750 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.1) CWE-284 vulnerability in code.gitea.io/gitea. A fix is available for code.gitea.io/gitea — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Gitea Remember-Me Token Theft Not Invalidating Attacker Session
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-2026-56750.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-56750 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 394,803 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
The vulnerability is in the Remember-Me (gitea_incredible) token validation logic, specifically when handling a compromised token (hash mismatch).
The vulnerable function is this one:
Affected Endpoint
POST /user/login (and any endpoint triggering autoSignIn via the Remember-Me cookie).
Description
Gitea implements Remember-Me cookies using a split token design (ID:Hash), citing the Paragonie secure remember-me guide. When a token is used, its Hash is rotated, but the ID remains the same.
If an attacker steals a user's Remember-Me token and uses it to authenticate, the attacker is issued a new rotated token (same ID, new Hash). When the legitimate user later attempts to use their original token, Gitea correctly detects a hash mismatch for the given ID.
According to the referenced Paragonie specification, this indicates a compromised token, and ALL active remember-me sessions for that user MUST be invalidated. However, Gitea's CheckAuthToken function simply returns ErrAuthTokenInvalidHash. The calling code (autoSignIn) catches this error and deletes the victim's local cookie via ctx.DeleteSiteCookie, but fails to delete the compromised token from the database.
As a result, the attacker's active session is never invalidated, and the attacker maintains persistent, indefinite access to the victim's account, entirely defeating the purpose of the split-token security design.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | code.gitea.io/gitea | all versions | 1.27.0go get code.gitea.io/gitea@v1.27.0 |
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 1.27.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-56750 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.
An Important flaw exists in Gitea where the theft of a 'remember-me' token does not invalidate an attacker's session. This allows an attacker to retain unauthorized access to a user's account even after the legitimate user has logged out or changed their password, extending the window of compromise.
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-2026-56750 (CC BY 4.0)
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-56750 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.