A critical flaw in open-source mainstay GitLab lays open sensitive configuration data that could allow an attacker to slip into a company’s source code repository and siphon credentials and secrets, using nothing more than a single web request, no login required.
GitLab shipped fixes for the bug, tracked as CVE-2026-85706, on September 10 in versions 19.1.8, 19.2.6, and 19.3.2 for both Community and Enterprise Editions. GitLab.com is already patched; GitLab Dedicated customers don’t need to act.
Organizations running public-facing, self-hosted GitLab instances do have work to do beyond installing the fix. The flaw is already under active exploitation. CISA added it to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities on Friday citing evidence of real-world attacks.
Threat intelligence firm watchTowr recorded in-the-wild probing within a day of disclosure. WatchTowr said it assesses “with high confidence that this vulnerability will rapidly transition to indiscriminate, in-the-wild exploitation,” and is advising admins to check access logs for unauthenticated requests to the repository commits API containing a “file.path” parameter.
It advises upgrading immediately.
It’s the second time in a matter of weeks that a critical, unauthenticated GitLab flaw has been exploited quickly in the wild. GitLab patched a separate GraphQL code-injection bug, CVE-2026-19478, mid-August after warning it could let an anonymous attacker delete or alter public projects and user data. WatchTowr also flagged it as easily reproducible within a day of that release, too.
18 Flaws, Two Critical
GitLab’s release addresses 18 security flaws in total on Thursday: two rated critical, six high, nine medium, and one low-severity.
Among the most critical issues was CVE-2026-85706, the path traversal flaw outlined above. According to the advisory, the bug could allow an unauthenticated attacker to read arbitrary files from the GitLab server due to improper path confinement and missing authentication enforcement in the repository commits API. The flaw carries a maximum CVSS score of 10.0.
Separately, GitLab also patched a critical bug in Duo Chat, its built-in AI assistant. Duo Chat allows you to query the repo and have it explain code, summarize an issue, or, in its newer version, open a merge request on its own. In this case, an attacker who already had Duo Chat access could send it a rigged request and get back configuration settings and credentials they had no business seeing. No in-the-wild exploitation has been reported for that one.
Admins are advised to test and deploy the updates as soon as possible.
