VulnerabilityPublished 1 Nov 2026

CVE-2026-118395: Gitea public-only token bypass in repository and organization creation

Affects GiteaSource CVE Database V5

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Not known to be exploited : upgrade to 28.3.0 soon.

Data as of 1 Nov 2026, 10:07 UTC

Severity

High

Rated High by Threat Radar's AI analysis · CVSS not yet scored by NVD

Thin evidence

One scorer or none

Patch: Available – fixed in 28.3.0

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 1 Nov 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 24 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade Gitea and go-gitea/gitea to 28.3.0.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Giteagitea.dev	Affected <28.3.0	Fixed in 28.3.0
GitHubgo-gitea/gitea`pkg:github/go-gitea/gitea`Other threats	Affected <28.3.0	Fixed in 28.3.0

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

Upgrade Gitea to version 28.3.0 or later, where this vulnerability is fixed. No other mitigation is required as the issue is resolved in the official fix.

Description

Gitea versions prior to 28.3.0 contain a vulnerability where personal access tokens restricted to public resources ('public-only') can bypass intended restrictions and create private repositories and organizations. This occurs because certain API endpoints still accept these tokens for creating private repositories and organizations, despite the tokens being limited to public resource access. The tokens cannot read the private repositories they create. The issue was fixed in version 28.3.0.

Impact

An attacker or user with a public-only personal access token and appropriate write scopes could create private repositories and organizations, bypassing the intended restriction to public resources. This could lead to unauthorized creation of private content within organizations where the token owner has repository creation rights. However, the token could not be used to read or access the private repositories created, limiting the scope of unauthorized access.

Summary

In Gitea versions before 28.3.0, personal access tokens restricted to public-only access were prevented from creating repositories via some API endpoints but not others. Specifically, while tokens could not create repositories through 'POST /api/v1/user/repos' and 'POST /api/v1/repos/migrate', they could still create private repositories and organizations via 'POST /api/v1/org/{org}/repos', 'POST /api/v1/orgs/{org}/repos', 'POST /api/v1/orgs', and 'POST /api/v1/repos/{owner}/{repo}/generate'. This allowed holders of public-only tokens with write scopes to create private repositories and organizations in contexts where they had repository creation permissions, bypassing the intended public-only restriction. The tokens, however, could not access the private repositories they created. The vulnerability was addressed and fixed in Gitea version 28.3.0.

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 1 Nov 2026, 10:07 UTC

Technical details

References

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