Critical severity · published Oct 6, 2026
CVE-2026-103059
Gitea built-in SSH server authentication bypass through key case folding
9.1
CVSS
0.4%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
When Gitea's built-in SSH server is enabled (`START_SSH_SERVER = true`), the presented public key was looked up with an SQL `LIKE` comparison of its encoded content, which is case-insensitive on some databases, including the default SQLite. An attacker who can construct a case variant of another user's registered RSA public key for which they can derive the private key could have that key matched to the victim's account and authenticate over SSH as that user. Keys are now looked up by fingerprint.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
None
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.4% · higher than 33% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
GI
Gitea · Gitea
through 1.27.3 · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-103059
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-103059
vendor-advisory
https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/security/advisories/GHSA-8pwg-hcgm-54cp
patch
https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/pull/39423
release-notes
https://blog.gitea.com/release-of-28.0.0/
release-notes
https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/releases/tag/v28.0.0
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