GitLab SSRF via Import Feature (CVE-2021-39935)
CVE-2021-39935 is a Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in GitLab Community and Enterprise Editions. An attacker can abuse GitLab's project import or integration features to cause the server to issue arbitrary HTTP requests to internal network resources, enabling reconnaissance, metadata service access, and potential lateral movement within cloud-hosted or on-premises GitLab deployments. This vulnerability is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
Vulnerability Intelligence
KEV — Known ExploitedAffected Software
- Vendor
- GitLab
- Product
- Community and Enterprise Editions
Weakness (CWE)
Timeline
- Disclosed
- February 3, 2026
CVSS
What is CVE-2021-39935 GitLab SSRF via Import Feature (CVE-2021-39935)?
GitLab SSRF via Import Feature (CVE-2021-39935) (CVE-2021-39935) maps to the Reconnaissance and Discovery and Lateral Movement tactics — the adversary is trying to gather information they can use to plan future operations in MITRE ATT&CK.
This page provides production-ready detection logic for GitLab SSRF via Import Feature (CVE-2021-39935), covering the data sources and telemetry it touches: CommonSecurityLog, W3CIISLog, AzureDiagnostics. The queries below are rated high severity at medium confidence, and ship for 7 SIEM platforms — KQL, SPL, Elastic, QRadar, Sumo, YARA-L, LogScale.
MITRE ATT&CK
union CommonSecurityLog, W3CIISLog
| where TimeGenerated > ago(7d)
| where (RequestURL has_any ("/api/v4/projects", "/import", "/integrations") or csUriStem has_any ("/api/v4/projects", "/import", "/integrations"))
| where (RequestURL matches regex @"(169\.254\.169\.254|metadata\.google\.internal|100\.100\.100\.200|localhost|127\.|10\.|192\.168\.|172\.(1[6-9]|2[0-9]|3[01])\.)" or csUriQuery matches regex @"(169\.254\.169\.254|metadata\.google\.internal|localhost|127\.|10\.|192\.168\.)")
| project TimeGenerated, DeviceVendor, DeviceProduct, SourceIP, DestinationIP, RequestURL, csUriStem, csUriQuery, RequestMethod, ResponseCode, Activity
| order by TimeGenerated desc Detects HTTP requests to GitLab import or integration API endpoints referencing internal/cloud metadata IP addresses indicative of SSRF exploitation attempts.
Data Sources
Required Tables
False Positives
- Legitimate GitLab integrations that import from internal artifact repositories may trigger this rule
- Security scanners or vulnerability assessment tools probing GitLab endpoints
- Misconfigured webhook targets pointing to RFC-1918 addresses for internal CI/CD pipelines
Sigma rule & cross-platform mapping
The detection logic for GitLab SSRF via Import Feature (CVE-2021-39935) (CVE-2021-39935) above is provided in a vendor-neutral
form so you can deploy it on any SIEM. The same logic is shipped here as native
KQL (Microsoft Sentinel / Defender), SPL (Splunk), Elastic (Elastic Security (EQL)), QRadar (IBM QRadar (AQL)), Sumo (Sumo Logic CSE), YARA-L (Google Chronicle / SecOps), LogScale (CrowdStrike LogScale (CQL)) queries. In Sigma terms, this detection targets the
following logsource:
logsource:
product: azure Browse the community-maintained Sigma rules for this technique:
Platform-specific guides for CVE-2021-39935
Testing Methodology
Validate this detection against 3 adversary techniques from Atomic Red Team. Each test below lists the behaviour to exercise and the telemetry you should expect to see. Executable commands and cleanup steps are available with Pro.
- Test 1SSRF via GitLab Project Import URL — Cloud Metadata
Expected signal: Outbound network connection from GitLab server process to 169.254.169.254:80; HTTP GET request logged in GitLab production.log with import_url parameter containing metadata IP
- Test 2SSRF via GitLab Webhook Integration — Internal Host
Expected signal: Network connection attempt from GitLab process to 192.168.1.1:6379; webhook creation logged in GitLab audit log with attacker-supplied internal URL
- Test 3SSRF via GitLab External Issue Tracker Integration — GCP Metadata
Expected signal: DNS lookup for metadata.google.internal followed by HTTP GET from GitLab server; integration update recorded in GitLab application log
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