CVE-2025-2853
📋 TL;DR
This vulnerability in GitLab allows authenticated users to trigger a denial of service condition due to insufficient input validation. It affects all GitLab Community Edition and Enterprise Edition installations running vulnerable versions. The issue could disrupt GitLab service availability for legitimate users.
💻 Affected Systems
- GitLab Community Edition
- GitLab Enterprise Edition
📦 What is this software?
Gitlab by Gitlab
GitLab is a complete DevOps platform providing source code management, CI/CD pipelines, security scanning, container registry, and collaboration tools used by millions of developers and thousands of enterprises worldwide. As both a cloud-hosted SaaS offering (GitLab.com) and self-managed software, G...
Learn more about Gitlab →Gitlab by Gitlab
GitLab is a complete DevOps platform providing source code management, CI/CD pipelines, security scanning, container registry, and collaboration tools used by millions of developers and thousands of enterprises worldwide. As both a cloud-hosted SaaS offering (GitLab.com) and self-managed software, G...
Learn more about Gitlab →Gitlab by Gitlab
GitLab is a complete DevOps platform providing source code management, CI/CD pipelines, security scanning, container registry, and collaboration tools used by millions of developers and thousands of enterprises worldwide. As both a cloud-hosted SaaS offering (GitLab.com) and self-managed software, G...
Learn more about Gitlab →Gitlab by Gitlab
GitLab is a complete DevOps platform providing source code management, CI/CD pipelines, security scanning, container registry, and collaboration tools used by millions of developers and thousands of enterprises worldwide. As both a cloud-hosted SaaS offering (GitLab.com) and self-managed software, G...
Learn more about Gitlab →Gitlab by Gitlab
GitLab is a complete DevOps platform providing source code management, CI/CD pipelines, security scanning, container registry, and collaboration tools used by millions of developers and thousands of enterprises worldwide. As both a cloud-hosted SaaS offering (GitLab.com) and self-managed software, G...
Learn more about Gitlab →Gitlab by Gitlab
GitLab is a complete DevOps platform providing source code management, CI/CD pipelines, security scanning, container registry, and collaboration tools used by millions of developers and thousands of enterprises worldwide. As both a cloud-hosted SaaS offering (GitLab.com) and self-managed software, G...
Learn more about Gitlab →⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Complete service unavailability for all GitLab users, disrupting code repositories, CI/CD pipelines, and collaboration features until service restoration.
Likely Case
Partial or intermittent service degradation affecting specific GitLab components or user groups, potentially causing workflow interruptions.
If Mitigated
Minimal impact with proper rate limiting, authentication controls, and monitoring in place to detect and block exploitation attempts.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires authenticated access but appears straightforward based on the CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling) classification.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: 17.10.7, 17.11.3, or 18.0.1
Vendor Advisory: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/527218
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Backup your GitLab instance. 2. Update to GitLab 17.10.7, 17.11.3, or 18.0.1 depending on your current version track. 3. Restart GitLab services. 4. Verify the update was successful.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Implement Rate Limiting
allConfigure rate limiting on authenticated endpoints to prevent resource exhaustion attacks
Configure in GitLab configuration files or via admin settings
Restrict User Permissions
allReview and minimize authenticated user permissions to reduce attack surface
Use GitLab admin interface to audit and adjust user roles
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement strict authentication monitoring and alerting for suspicious resource consumption patterns
- Deploy network-level rate limiting and WAF rules to detect and block DoS attempts
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check GitLab version via admin interface or command line; compare against affected version rangesCheck Version:
sudo gitlab-rake gitlab:env:info | grep 'Version:'Verify Fix Applied:
Confirm GitLab version is 17.10.7, 17.11.3, or 18.0.1 or higher📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unusual resource consumption patterns
- Multiple authentication attempts followed by high resource usage
- Error logs indicating service unavailability
Network Indicators:
- Spike in authenticated API requests
- Abnormal traffic patterns from single authenticated users
SIEM Query:
source="gitlab" AND (error OR warning) AND (resource OR memory OR cpu) AND authenticated_user=*