Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessEnumerate target project's Service Desk email address
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DeliveryCraft email reply with template substitution payload
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ExploitSend malicious email to Service Desk endpoint
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ExecutionGitLab processes email through vulnerable template engine
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PersistInjected content rendered as GitLab Support Bot message
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ImpactVictim views issue and is exposed to attacker-controlled content
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A05:2025 - Injection
ASVS 5.0
V1 - Encoding and Sanitization Record delimiter neutralization
|
| Exploitation Conditions | The GitLab Service Desk feature must be enabled on the target project - this is a non-default, opt-in feature requiring project maintainer or administrator configuration. The attacker must be able to send email to the project's Service Desk address (which may be discoverable via the project's issue tracker UI or email headers). The attack additionally requires 'certain conditions' to be met, per the vendor description, which aligns with the AC:H CVSS rating; these specific conditions are not further enumerated in available public data and should be referenced in GitLab's internal issue (work item 601330). User interaction is required (UI:R) - a legitimate user must view the affected issue thread for the injected content to have social-engineering impact. There is an unresolved conflict between the description's 'unauthenticated user' language and the CVSS vector's PR:L designation; if PR:L is accurate, the attacker must possess at least Reporter-level access to the GitLab instance, which further limits exposure. No exploitation occurs on instances where Service Desk is not configured. |
| Impact | Real-world risk is constrained by multiple compounding factors. The official CVSS base score of 2.6 reflects AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N - high attack complexity, low privileges required, and user interaction needed for impact materialization, with only a low integrity effect and no confidentiality or availability impact. IMPORTANT CONFLICT: The official CVSS vector designates PR:L (some privileges required), yet the CVE description explicitly states the vulnerability can be triggered by 'an unauthenticated user.' This discrepancy is not resolved by available data and should be verified with the vendor - if PR:N is accurate, the practical attack surface broadens. EPSS data is not provided in this intelligence set. No KEV listing exists, indicating no confirmed widespread active exploitation, though a publicly available exploit on HackerOne elevates the realistic threat posture above theoretical. The AC:H rating aligns with the description's qualifier 'under certain conditions,' suggesting the attack is not reliably reproducible in all deployments. The impact is limited to content integrity - an attacker forging Support Bot messages could enable social engineering or phishing within the platform but cannot directly exfiltrate data or deny service. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker obtains or enumerates the Service Desk email address for a GitLab project, then crafts a reply email whose body contains template substitution sequences targeting GitLab's internal email renderer. When GitLab processes the inbound email reply under the conditions required to trigger the vulnerability, the template engine evaluates the injected tokens and renders forged content attributed to the GitLab Support Bot identity within the issue thread. A victim user viewing the issue subsequently sees a seemingly authoritative Support Bot message containing attacker-controlled content, which could be used for phishing, credential harvesting, or directing users to malicious links. A publicly available exploit exists on HackerOne (report 3685720), confirming the attack is technically reproducible. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Jun 11, 2026
Content injection via Service Desk email template processing in GitLab CE/EE allows an unauthenticated attacker to impersonate the GitLab Support Bot and inject arbitrary content into issue threads. The vulnerability affects all GitLab instances running versions from 15.9 through 19.0.1 with the Service Desk feature active, and stems from improper neutralization of substitution characters (CWE-153) in email template rendering. A publicly available exploit exists on HackerOne, though no active exploitation has been confirmed by CISA KEV; the official CVSS score of 2.6 reflects the high attack complexity and limited integrity-only impact.
RemediationAI
Upgrade to a patched release immediately: GitLab 18.10.8, 18.11.5, or 19.0.2, as documented in the vendor patch advisory at https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2026/06/10/patch-release-gitlab-19-0-2-released/. These are the exact fixed versions confirmed by the GitLab release announcement dated 2026-06-10. If immediate upgrade is not feasible, the primary compensating control is to disable the Service Desk feature on the affected GitLab instance, which removes the inbound email processing pathway that this vulnerability targets; note that disabling Service Desk will prevent all inbound issue creation via email until the upgrade is applied. Restricting who can send email to Service Desk addresses (e.g., allowlisting known sender domains via email routing controls) provides an additional layer of defense but should not substitute for patching, as spoofed sender addresses may still satisfy naive filters.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in euvd
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Technical ContextAI · show details
GitLab's Service Desk feature accepts inbound emails and processes them as issue comments using an internal email template engine. The vulnerability is rooted in CWE-153 (Improper Neutralization of Substitution Characters), meaning the template processor fails to sanitize or escape substitution tokens within attacker-controlled email reply content before rendering. This allows an adversary to craft an email body containing template substitution sequences that, when processed by GitLab's mailer/template layer, are evaluated rather than treated as literal text, effectively letting the attacker forge content attributed to the privileged GitLab Support Bot identity. The affected product is identified via CPE cpe:2.3:a:gitlab:gitlab:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* and applies to both Community Edition and Enterprise Edition deployments across a wide version range (15.9 to 19.0.1). The HackerOne report and GitLab work item (ID 601330) corroborate the template-injection root cause.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
AV:N because attack is delivered via email; AC:H per 'certain conditions'; PR:N per description's explicit 'unauthenticated user' language, overriding the conflicting official PR:L; UI:R because victim must view the injected issue content; I:L for content injection only.
Primary rating from Vendor (GitLab).
CVSS VectorNVD
Lifecycle Timeline
3DescriptionNVD
GitLab has remediated an issue in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 15.9 before 18.10.8, 18.11 before 18.11.5, and 19.0 before 19.0.2 that under certain conditions, could have allowed an unauthenticated user to impersonate the GitLab Support Bot and inject arbitrary content via a specially crafted Service Desk email reply due to improper neutralization in email template processing.
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Code injection occurs when an application accepts user input and passes it directly into a language interpreter or evaluator without proper sanitization.
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EUVD-2026-36224
GHSA-5cr4-qwvx-32j2
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
VulDB
Exploit-DB