CVE-2023-3909Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity in GitLab
- 4.3MediumCVSS base score
- 0.73%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 45% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- YesPublic exploitsa reference or SSVC says so
Description
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.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. A reference of the record is tagged as an exploit.
Show the exploits1
References tagged exploit1 reference
- HackerOne Bug Bounty Report #2050269 (opens in a new tab)technical-descriptionexploitpermissions-requiredx_transferred
Timeline
ID reserved
By GitLab
- 3 months later
· 3 months later
Published
- 2 years later
· 2 years later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitLabCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | Medium4.3 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L |
| NVDNVD · Analyzed | 3.1 | Medium6.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.73% · top 45% of all CVEs (12 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 4.3.
Affected products
What to do
Solution: Upgrade to version 16.5.1, 16.4.2, 16.3.6
References
References2
- GitLab Issue #418763 (opens in a new tab)issue-trackingpermissions-requiredx_transferred
- HackerOne Bug Bounty Report #2050269 (opens in a new tab)technical-descriptionexploitpermissions-requiredx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2023-44535 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2023-3909)Record last updated .