CVE-2018-18641

What is this vulnerability?

CVE-2018-18641 is categorized as a critical Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information flaw with a CVSS base score of 9.8. Based on our vulnerability intelligence, this issue occurs when the application fails to securely handle untrusted data boundaries.

An issue was discovered in GitLab Community and Enterprise Edition before 11.2.7, 11.3.x before 11.3.8, and 11.4.x before 11.4.3. It has Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information.

This architectural defect enables adversaries to bypass intended security controls, directly manipulating the application's execution state or data layer. Immediate strategic intervention is required.

Risk Assessment

Impact on Systems

✅ Credential Theft: Exposed secrets enable unauthorized access to infrastructure, cloud services, and third-party integrations.

✅ Compliance Violation: Leaking PII or credentials may violate GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and SOC 2 requirements.

✅ Supply Chain Risk: Compromised credentials in public repositories can propagate to downstream consumers.

How to Fix and Mitigate CVE-2018-18641

1. Apply Vendor Patches: Upgrade affected components to their latest, non-vulnerable versions immediately.
2. Implement Input Validation: Ensure all user-supplied data is validated, sanitized, and type-checked before processing.
3. Deploy Runtime Protection: Use Precogs continuous monitoring to detect exploitation attempts in real time.
4. Audit Dependencies: Review and update all third-party libraries and transitive dependencies.

Defending with Precogs AI

Precogs PII & Secrets Scanner automatically identifies hardcoded credentials, exposed API keys, and personally identifiable information leaks across repositories, CI/CD pipelines, and deployed artifacts.

Use Precogs to continuously scan your codebase, binaries, APIs, and infrastructure for this vulnerability class and related attack patterns. Our AI-powered detection engine combines static analysis with threat intelligence to identify exploitable weaknesses before attackers do.

Start scanning with Precogs →

Vulnerability Code Signature

Attack Data Flow

Vulnerable Code Pattern

// ❌ VULNERABLE: Cleartext Storage
public void savePassword(String username, String password) {
    // Taint sink: saving password in plain text
    db.execute("INSERT INTO users (username, password) VALUES (?, ?)", username, password);
}

Secure Code Pattern

// ✅ SECURE: Secure Hashing
import org.springframework.security.crypto.bcrypt.BCryptPasswordEncoder;
public void savePassword(String username, String password) {
    BCryptPasswordEncoder encoder = new BCryptPasswordEncoder();
    String hashedPassword = encoder.encode(password);
    // Sanitized storage
    db.execute("INSERT INTO users (username, password) VALUES (?, ?)", username, hashedPassword);
}

How Precogs Detects This

Precogs PII & Secrets Scanner continuously monitors codebases for insecure storage of sensitive information and reversible encryption.