Unauthorized users can gain control of self-managed software installations by exploiting a bug in the systems used to process CI/CD configurations. This vulnerability in GitLab’s regular expression compiler, tracked as CVE-2026-97229 and CVE-2026-110264, permits unauthenticated remote code execution when an attacker places a crafted regular expression in a configuration file. The issue affects both Community and Enterprise Editions, specifically versions 19.2 before 19.2.8, 19.3 before 19.3.5, and 19.4 before 19.4.2, requiring no login or user interaction.
The security hole has a maximum CVSS score of 10.0 and spans 12 years of software releases, affecting versions as old as 7.0 from 2014. GitLab has already deployed patches for its Dedicated environments and the GitLab.com cloud service. Administrators of self-managed instances must update their installations immediately to prevent network-accessible attacks.
