CVE-2026-96399 Gitea denial of service through external issue tracker patterns
A user with repository edit rights can crash the Gitea instance by configuring a malicious external issue tracker regex, causing a denial of service for all users.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-96399?
CVE-2026-96399 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Gitea Gitea, published on 6 Oct 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
A repository's external issue tracker regular expression containing alternating capture groups could produce invalid slice indexes when Gitea rendered issue references, causing a runtime panic that terminated the Gitea process. A user who can edit a repository's external issue tracker settings could make any later rendering of matching content, such as viewing a README, crash the instance for all users.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-96399?
1 open source package ship an affected version, including gitea. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
gitea Bitnami | All versions | 28.0.0 |
Products include Gitea Gitea.
How do I fix CVE-2026-96399?
Upgrade gitea to 28.0.0 or later.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2026-96399 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-96399 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Gitea Gitea
Sources
Also known as BIT-gitea-2026-96399, GHSA-mw6q-qj47-9g5q, MINI-4363-x6mc-4vg8, MINI-v8x5-f5j5-qhxf.