LowPublic exploit

Authorization bypass in GitLab CE/EE group fork prevention

IdentifiersCVE-2025-9957CWE-863· Incorrect Authorization

CVE-2025-9957 is an authorization flaw in GitLab Community Edition (CE) and Enterprise Edition (EE). GitLab states that all versions from 11.2 before 18.9.6, 18.10 before 18.10.4, and 18.11 before 18.11.1 are affected. Under certain conditions, an authenticated user with project owner permissions could bypass group fork prevention settings because of improper authorization checks. Based on the available information, the issue allows a project owner to perform a fork-related action that should have been blocked by group-level policy enforcement.

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ANALYST BRIEF

Impact, mitigation & remediation

What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.

Impact

What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.

Successful exploitation allows an authenticated project owner to circumvent configured group fork prevention controls. The primary impact is unauthorized creation or use of project forks despite administrative or group policy intended to prohibit that behavior. This can undermine repository governance and data control, potentially enabling code to be copied into unauthorized fork locations and weakening organizational restrictions around source code distribution and project management.

Mitigation

If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.

If immediate patching is not possible, limit assignment of project owner permissions to only highly trusted users and review projects in groups where fork prevention is relied upon as a control. Monitor for unauthorized or unexpected fork activity and apply compensating administrative oversight until the instance can be upgraded. Specific vendor-provided mitigations beyond patching are not available in the provided content.

Remediation

Patch, then assume compromise.

Upgrade GitLab CE/EE to a fixed release. GitLab indicates the issue is remediated in 18.9.6, 18.10.4, and 18.11.1. Affected deployments running versions from 11.2 prior to those patched releases should update to the appropriate fixed version in their supported release train.

PUBLIC EXPLOITS

Exploits

No public exploits tracked yet. Mallory keeps watching.

VALID 0 / 0 TOTALView more in app

No public exploit code observed for this vulnerability.

EXPOSURE SURFACE

Affected products & vendors

Products and vendors Mallory has correlated with this vulnerability. Open in Mallory to drill down to specific CPE configurations and version ranges.

VendorProductType

GitLabGitlabapplication

Vendor-confirmed product mapping. Mallory continuously reconciles this list against your asset inventory.

ACTIVITY FEED

Recent activity

2 sources tracked across advisories and community write-ups. News coverage will land here when it surfaces.

2 SOURCESView more in app

No news coverage yet. Advisories and community discussion only.

What this page doesn’t show

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Exposure mapping

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Threat actor evidence

Every observed campaign linking this CVE to a named adversary.

Associated malware

Malware families riding this exploit, with evidence and IOCs.

Detection signatures

YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.

Vendor-by-vendor mapping

Cross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.

Social activity1