CVE-2021-39938

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.9% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2021-12-13 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-400

Description

A vulnerable regular expression pattern in GitLab CE/EE since version 8.15 before 14.3.6, all versions starting from 14.4 before 14.4.4, all versions starting from 14.5 before 14.5.2, allows an attacker to cause uncontrolled resource consumption leading to Denial of Service via specially crafted deploy Slash commands

Affected products

GitLab: from 8.15.0 before 14.3.6; from 14.4.0 before 14.4.4; from 14.5.0 before 14.5.2 — fixed in 14.3.6, 14.4.4, 14.5.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: GitLab 14.3.6, 14.4.4, 14.5.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cves/-/blob/master/2021/CVE-2021-39938.json
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/344873
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cves/-/blob/master/2021/CVE-2021-39938.json
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/344873

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