CVE-2025-8014: 
GitLab vulnerability analysis and mitigation

CVE-2025-8014 is a high-severity vulnerability affecting GitLab Community Edition (CE) and Enterprise Edition (EE) that allows unauthenticated users to bypass query complexity limits leading to a Denial of Service condition. The vulnerability impacts all versions from 11.10 prior to 18.2.7, 18.3 prior to 18.3.3, and 18.4 prior to 18.4.1. The issue was discovered and reported through GitLab's HackerOne bug bounty program by researcher foxribeye (GitLab Patch).

The vulnerability carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (High) with the vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H. The flaw leverages unbounded GraphQL queries; by constructing deeply nested or overly complex queries against /api/graphql endpoints, an attacker can exceed internal query cost thresholds, triggering a crash loop in the unicorn worker pool (Security News).

When exploited, this vulnerability can render GitLab instances unresponsive to legitimate users by triggering Denial of Service conditions. The flaw affects self-managed GitLab instances and internal graphs, potentially disrupting CI/CD pipelines and other critical GitLab services (Security Online).

GitLab has released security updates to address this vulnerability. Administrators should immediately upgrade to versions 18.4.1, 18.3.3, or 18.2.7. The patch can be applied with zero downtime for multi-node deployments by leveraging the /etc/gitlab/skip-auto-reconfigure flag. GitLab.com is already running the patched version, and GitLab Dedicated customers do not need to take action (GitLab Patch).

The security community has highlighted this vulnerability as one of the most severe issues in the recent GitLab security update, alongside CVE-2025-10858, due to its potential for unauthenticated denial of service attacks. The vulnerability has garnered significant attention due to its high CVSS score and the widespread use of GitLab in enterprise environments (Security News).