CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-3909

Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity

Published: Nov 06, 2023 | Modified: May 05, 2025
CVSS 3.x
6.5
MEDIUM
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CVSS 2.x
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu
MEDIUM
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An issue has been discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions starting from 12.3 before 16.3.6, all versions starting from 16.4 before 16.4.2, all versions starting from 16.5 before 16.5.1. A Regular Expression Denial of Service was possible by adding a large string in timeout input in gitlab-ci.yml file.

Weakness

The product uses a regular expression with an inefficient, possibly exponential worst-case computational complexity that consumes excessive CPU cycles.

Affected Software

NameVendorStart VersionEnd Version
GitlabGitlab12.3.0 (including)16.3.6 (excluding)
GitlabGitlab16.4.0 (including)16.4.2 (excluding)
GitlabGitlab16.5.0 (including)16.5.0 (including)
GitlabUbuntuesm-apps/xenial*

Extended Description

	  Attackers can create crafted inputs that
	  intentionally cause the regular expression to use
	  excessive backtracking in a way that causes the CPU
	  consumption to spike.

Potential Mitigations

References