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Mallory
Medium

Improper Access Control in GitLab Merge Requests API

IdentifiersCVE-2026-6269CWE-285

CVE-2026-6269 is an improper access control vulnerability in GitLab Community Edition (CE) and Enterprise Edition (EE) affecting all versions from 15.10 before 18.10.8, 18.11 before 18.11.5, and 19.0 before 19.0.2. Due to incorrect authorization enforcement in the Merge Requests API, an authenticated user with developer-role permissions could, under certain conditions, modify hidden merge requests that should not have been modifiable by that user.

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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 developer-level user to bypass intended authorization restrictions and alter hidden merge requests. This can undermine merge request confidentiality and integrity, interfere with review workflows, and enable unauthorized changes to code review artifacts that should remain restricted.

Mitigation

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

If immediate patching is not possible, reduce exposure by limiting developer access to projects containing sensitive or hidden merge requests, closely auditing Merge Requests API activity, and restricting or monitoring API usage for users who do not strictly require it. Because the issue is rooted in incorrect authorization enforcement, no complete mitigation short of upgrading is provided in the content.

Remediation

Patch, then assume compromise.

Upgrade GitLab CE/EE to a fixed release. GitLab states the issue is remediated in 18.10.8, 18.11.5, and 19.0.2. Self-managed installations running affected versions should upgrade to the appropriate patched version or later. GitLab.com was already patched according to the provided content.
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

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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 activity2

Community discussion across Reddit, Mastodon, and other social sources.