CVE-2021-39909 Missing authorization in GitLab

What is CVE-2021-39909?

CVE-2021-39909 is a medium-severity missing authorization vulnerability in Gitlab Gitlab, published on 4 Nov 2021. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Lack of email address ownership verification in the CODEOWNERS feature in all versions of GitLab EE starting from 11.3 before 14.2.6, all versions starting from 14.3 before 14.3.4, and all versions starting from 14.4 before 14.4.1 allows an attacker to bypass CODEOWNERS Merge Request approval requirement under rare circumstances

Weakness: CWE-347

Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-39909?

1 open source package ship an affected version, including gitlab. It affects 1 product.

Products include Gitlab Gitlab.

How do I fix CVE-2021-39909?

Upgrade gitlab to a fixed version for your release line: 14.2.6, 14.3.4 or 14.4.1.

Upgrade, and check permissions on every request on the server, not only in the interface. More about Missing authorization.

Is CVE-2021-39909 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-39909 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Gitlab Gitlab

• CVE-2026-97229 GitLab Community Edition and Enterprise Edition Integer Overflow or Wraparound Exploited Critical 10.0
• CVE-2026-85706 GitLab Community Edition and Enterprise Edition Path Traversal Exploited Critical 10.0
• CVE-2023-7028 GitLab Community and Enterprise Editions Improper Access Control Exploited Critical 10.0
• CVE-2021-22205 GitLab Community and Enterprise Editions Remote Code Execution Exploited Critical 10.0
• CVE-2021-39935 GitLab Community and Enterprise Editions Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) Exploited Medium 6.8

All Gitlab Gitlab vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BIT-gitlab-2021-39909, GHSA-xxx4-cx36-38r5.