Gitea Actions job token spoofing of instance-signed commits
Summary
| CVE | CVE-2026-116474 |
|---|---|
| State | PUBLISHED |
| Assigner | Gitea |
| Source Priority | CVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback |
| Published | 2026-11-01 10:18:35 UTC |
| Updated | 2026-11-01 10:18:35 UTC |
| Description | The `GITEA_TOKEN` of a Gitea Actions job authenticates as the `gitea-actions` system user, and the `/api/v1/user` email and GPG key endpoints accepted that user, so a job could register an email address and a GPG key on it; without required email confirmation (the default) the address is stored as activated. Commit verification treats a key without a real owner as the instance signing key, so any user who can run a workflow job could make commits signed with their own key show as trusted and signed by the instance in every repository where they appear, including pull requests to repositories the user cannot write to. The impact is limited to the displayed signature status: enforcement such as required signed commits only checks that a signature is verified and is unaffected, and no access is gained. The `/api/v1/user` routes now reject system users. |
Risk And Classification
EPSS: 0.001080000 probability, percentile 0.011640000 (date 2026-11-02)
Problem Types: CWE-347 | CWE-347 CWE-347: Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature
Vendor Declared Affected Products
References
| Reference | Source | Link | Tags |
|---|---|---|---|
| github.com/go-gitea/gitea/security/advisories/GHSA-mf6p-vqpw-3r7x | 88ee5874-cf24-4952-aea0-31affedb7ff2 | github.com | |
| blog.gitea.com/release-of-28.3.0 | 88ee5874-cf24-4952-aea0-31affedb7ff2 | blog.gitea.com | |
| github.com/go-gitea/gitea/pull/40115 | 88ee5874-cf24-4952-aea0-31affedb7ff2 | github.com | |
| github.com/go-gitea/gitea/releases/tag/v28.3.0 | 88ee5874-cf24-4952-aea0-31affedb7ff2 | github.com | |
| github.com/go-gitea/gitea/pull/39945 | 88ee5874-cf24-4952-aea0-31affedb7ff2 | github.com | |
| CVE Program record | CVE.ORG | www.cve.org | canonical |
| NVD vulnerability detail | NVD | nvd.nist.gov | canonical, analysis |
Vendor Comments And Credit
Discovery Credit
CNA: https://github.com/bircni (en)
There are currently no legacy QID mappings associated with this CVE.