CVE-2022-2251

Severity: high (CVSS 8.0 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 1.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2023-01-17 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-78

Description

Improper sanitization of branch names in GitLab Runner affecting all versions prior to 15.3.5, 15.4 prior to 15.4.4, and 15.5 prior to 15.5.2 allows a user who creates a branch with a specially crafted name and gets another user to trigger a pipeline to execute commands in the runner as that other user.

Affected products

GitLab Runner: before 15.3.5; from 15.4.0 before 15.4.4; from 15.5.0 before 15.5.2 — fixed in 15.3.5, 15.4.4, 15.5.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: GitLab Runner 15.3.5, 15.4.4, 15.5.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cves/-/blob/master/2022/CVE-2022-2251.json
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-runner/-/issues/27386
https://hackerone.com/reports/1063511
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cves/-/blob/master/2022/CVE-2022-2251.json
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-runner/-/issues/27386
https://hackerone.com/reports/1063511

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