Gitea public-only token bypass through Actions runner registration
Affects Gitea 1.27.0 with Actions enabled, where a public organization has private repositories using Actions. No vendor rating is given. Fixed in 28.3.0.
Written by anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5 from the sources below. Verify against them.
- Last modified
- Where the record stands: published, rejected by its publisher, or superseded by another id.What do these mean? →
- Published
- Whether CISA lists it in its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog: proof that attackers are using it.What do these mean? →
- Not listed in CISA KEV
- A 0-100 score for how much a CVE matters across the industry: exploitation, exposure, how widely the software is used, severity and whether a fix exists.What do these mean? →
- 8/100 · provisional
- How many real-world setups can hit the bug, from the vendor's advisory and CISA data. It does not know your setup.What do these mean? →
- Specific setups only
- Fix
- Fixed in 28.3.0
- Whether working attack code is public (Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or GitHub). Public code makes attacks easier.What do these mean? →
- None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
Summary
Gitea, the self-hosted Git service, is affected when its organization Actions runner registration feature is used. An attacker holding a restricted "public-only" access token belonging to an owner of a public organization could register a runner and receive jobs from that organization's private repositories, exposing their workflow contents, secrets, variables, and task tokens.
Read the original description
Gitea did not reject personal access tokens restricted to public resources (`public-only`) on the organization Actions runner registration-token endpoint, and the runner registered with the resulting token was not limited to public repositories. Holding only such a token with `write:organization` that belongs to an owner of a public organization, an attacker could register an organization-level runner and receive jobs of the organization's private repositories that have Actions enabled, including the workflow content, Actions secrets and variables, and a task token with access to the private repository. The issue widens what the restricted token can reach; it gives nothing beyond what the owner's full account can already do.
What to do
Check whether your setup matches what the bug needs.
Gitea 1.27.0 with Actions enabled The organization has a public visibility and at least one private repository with Actions enabled The attacker holds a public-only,write:organization token belonging to an organization owner A matching private-repository workflow job is queued and assigned to the attacker-controlled runnerUpgrade to a fixed version: 28.3.0.
Timeline
- CVE published
- First seen by cve.now
Affected versions
- gitea.dev
fixed in 28.3.0
Evidence 5
- Advisory
- Patch
- Patch
- Repository
- Link
Corrections
None so far.
Something wrong on this page? Report an error. Every fix is listed here.
Questions about CVE-2026-116289
What does this mean?
A personal access token limited to public-only and write:organization scopes can obtain an organization-level Actions runner registration token for a public organization. With that token, a runner can be registered that receives jobs from the organization's private repositories, which exposes private Actions secrets and a task token with pull and push access to those repositories.Source: github.com, blog.gitea.com
Am I affected, and how do I check?
The conditions describe Gitea 1.27.0 with Actions enabled, in a public organization that has at least one private repository with Actions enabled. The listed version range runs from the start up to, but not including, 28.3.0. To check the version, run the gitea binary with the version flag or look at the version shown in the site administration dashboard.Source: github.com, blog.gitea.com
What should I do about it?
Upgrade Gitea to 28.3.0 or later, which contains the fix.Source: github.com, blog.gitea.com
Is it being exploited?
It is not in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, and CISA's SSVC assessment does not mark exploitation as active. That does not mean it has not been attacked: vendors and researchers can report attacks before CISA lists them. No public exploit code is tracked.Source: cve.now feed data