CVE-2026-73278

Gitea's OAuth2 token endpoint verified the signature and grant of a token submitted with the refresh_token grant type, but not that the token was a refresh token. An unexpired access token for the same OAuth2 application and grant could be exchanged for a new access token and refresh token. Whoever holds such an access token could keep access beyond the token's original lifetime.

Gitea accepted pushed Git trees containing two entries with the same name, which Git's own consistency checks reject. Gitea's web views resolved such a path to the first entry, while `git checkout`, Gitea Actions, and release archives use the last. A contributor could open a pull request whose diff and file views show benign content while CI and checkouts at the same commit use different, attacker-controlled content. Incoming objects are now checked for consistency; objects already stored in existing repositories are not rescanned.

Gitea Actions decided whether a fork pull request run needed approval based on the user who triggered the event rather than the pull request author. For `pull_request` activity triggered by a maintainer during ordinary triage, such as adding a label, the run was created without requiring approval, while the workflow definition was still taken from the fork head. Where Actions is enabled and a matching runner is registered, fork-controlled workflow code could run on the base repository's runners without an explicit approval.

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.

Two SSRF vulnerabilities in Gitea migration/mirror (DNS rebinding + missing re-validation).

Public-only repository tokens can update private PR head branches.

The team-repository linking endpoint bypasses the RepoAdminChangeTeamAccess organization setting. This means a user without proper permissions can change repository-team assignments.

Theft of the Remember-Me token in Gitea does not invalidate the attacker's session, allowing continued unauthorized access.

The vulnerability allows privilege escalation via access token scope escalation in the API.