Group-owner escalation via overprivileged group invitations
Published Feb 21, 2024 · Updated May 15, 2026
Privilege escalation in GitLab EE allows remote authenticated users with a custom role to gain group Owner access through group invitations. The group-member administration path lets a custom role with admin_group_member invite another group at Owner, exceeding the actor's own base-role ceiling. The attacker must already hold that custom permission; successful abuse grants full control over the target group and its members.
Summary
What happened
Privilege escalation in GitLab EE allows remote authenticated users with a custom role to gain group Owner access through group invitations. The group-member administration path lets a custom role with admin_group_member invite another group at Owner, exceeding the actor's own base-role ceiling. The attacker must already hold that custom permission; successful abuse grants full control over the target group and its members.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2023-6477
- Published
- Feb 21, 2024
- Updated
- May 15, 2026
- Vendor
- GitLab
- Product
- GitLab
- Classifications
- CWE-266, T1098
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Feb 21, 2024CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 15, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=16.5 <16.7.6
- Affected versionversion=16.8 <16.8.3
- Affected versionversion=16.9 <16.9.1
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Public exploit references
- GitLab issue 433463 reproduction stepsproof of concept · demonstrated
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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