Quick answers
- Is CVE-2026-56654 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-56654 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2026-56654?
- High severity, with a CVSS score of 4, published 21 July 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- Gitea < 1.27.0; code.gitea.io/gitea (Go) < 1.27.0, SEMVER:introduced=0,fixed=1.27.0; gitea.dev (Go) SEMVER:introduced=0,fixed=1.27.0.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-56654?
- Yes. code.gitea.io/gitea (Go): upgrade to 1.27.0 or later; gitea.dev (Go): upgrade to 1.27.0 or later. Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.
- How is CVE-2026-56654 attacked?
- It is attacked over the network, in a hosted service.
- Am I affected by CVE-2026-56654?
- Check whether you run Gitea, code.gitea.io/gitea (Go) or gitea.dev (Go) at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
How to fix
- code.gitea.io/gitea (Go): upgrade to 1.27.0 or later
go get code.gitea.io/gitea@v1.27.0 - gitea.dev (Go): upgrade to 1.27.0 or later
go get gitea.dev@v1.27.0
Technical details
A privilege escalation vulnerability exists in Gitea's API due to a logic error in the authentication middleware. The `reqBasicOrRevProxyAuth` middleware, intended to require password-based authentication for sensitive operations like token creation, can be bypassed by providing a Personal Access Token (PAT) in the `Authorization: Basic <token>:x-oauth-basic` format. The backend incorrectly sets `IsBasicAuth=true` for these requests. Furthermore, the `CreateAccessToken` handler fails to implement a 'scope ceiling' check, allowing a caller with a restricted token to mint a new token with the 'all' scope. This allows an attacker with any valid token to escalate to full account privileges. Fixed in version 1.27.0.
Affected products
- Gitea Gitea < 1.27.0
Identifiers
- CVE-2026-56654
- GHSA-683j-3ff6-hh2x
- GO-2026-6034
Timeline
- 2026-07-13: disclosed
- 2026-07-21: advisory