GitLab releases security updates addressing several critical vulnerabilities, urging all users to upgrade immediately.

This release is crucial for ensuring the security of GitLab instances, as it patches vulnerabilities that could allow attackers to:

• Write files anywhere on the server: This critical vulnerability (CVE-2024-0402) exposes systems to potential data breaches and malware attacks.
• Trigger Denial-of-Service attacks: Malicious actors could exploit this vulnerability (CVE-2023-6159) to disrupt GitLab instances.
• Gain unauthorized access: Improper user input sanitization (CVE-2023-5933) could grant attackers control over GitLab data.
• Access private email addresses: A vulnerability in the Tags RSS Feed (CVE-2023-5612) could expose sensitive user information.
• Manipulate merge requests: Unauthorized users could gain control over merge requests within projects (CVE-2024-0456).

What Versions are Affected?

• GitLab Community Edition (CE) and Enterprise Edition (EE) versions 16.0 to 16.8 are affected by at least one vulnerability.
• Specific vulnerabilities affect different version ranges within this broader scope. 

Refer to the detailed table in the official GitLab release notes for a complete breakdown.

How to Update:

• GitLab.com and GitLab Dedicated environments are already patched.
• For self-hosted instances, upgrade to the latest version (16.8.1, 16.7.4,16.6.6, or 16.5.8, depending on the version) as soon as possible.

Additional Points to Remember:

• Upgrading to 16.5.8 only includes the critical file write vulnerability fix and no other changes.
• The fix for the critical vulnerability has been backported to older versions (16.5.8, 16.6.6, 16.7.4).
• Consider enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA) for an extra layer of security