Vulnerability Page

DETAILS: Tier: Ultimate Offering: GitLab.com, Self-managed, GitLab Dedicated

Each vulnerability in a project has a vulnerability page containing details of the vulnerability, including:

• Description
• When it was detected
• Current status
• Available actions
• Linked issues
• Actions log
• Filename and line number of the vulnerability (if available)

If the scanner determined the vulnerability to be a false positive, an alert message is included at the top of the vulnerability's page.

When a vulnerability is no longer detected in a project's default branch, you should change its status to Resolved. This ensures that if it is accidentally reintroduced in a future merge, it is reported again as a new record. To change the status of multiple vulnerabilities, use the Vulnerability Report's Activity filter.

Explaining a vulnerability

DETAILS: Tier: For a limited time, Ultimate. In the future, Ultimate with GitLab Duo Enterprise. Offering: GitLab.com, Self-managed, GitLab Dedicated

• Introduced in GitLab 16.0 as an experiment on GitLab.com.
• Promoted to beta status in GitLab 16.2.
• Generally available in GitLab 17.2.

GitLab can help you with a vulnerability by using a large language model to:

• Summarize the vulnerability.
• Help developers and security analysts to understand the vulnerability, how it could be exploited, and how to fix it.
• Provide a suggested mitigation.

Vulnerability explanation

Explain a vulnerability with GitLab Duo Vulnerability explanation. Use the explanation to better understand a vulnerability and its possible mitigation.

Prerequisites:

• You must have the GitLab Ultimate subscription tier.
• Have a paid GitLab Duo Enterprise seat.
• GitLab Duo must be enabled for the group or instance.
• You must be a member of the project.
• The vulnerability must be from a SAST scanner.

To explain the vulnerability:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.

2. Select Secure > Vulnerability report.

3. Optional. To remove the default filters, select Clear ({clear}).

4. Above the list of vulnerabilities, select the filter bar.

5. In the dropdown list that appears, select Tool, then select all the values in the SAST category.

6. Select outside the filter field. The vulnerability severity totals and list of matching vulnerabilities are updated.

7. Select the SAST vulnerability you want explained.

8. Do one of the following:

   • Select the text below the vulnerability description that reads You can also use AI by asking GitLab Duo Chat to explain this vulnerability and a suggested fix.
   • In the upper right, from the Resolve with merge request dropdown list, select Explain vulnerability, then select Explain vulnerability.
   • Open GitLab Duo Chat and use the explain a vulnerability command by typing /vulnerability_explain.

The response is shown on the right side of the page.

On GitLab.com this feature is available. By default, it is powered by Anthropic's claude-3-haiku model. We cannot guarantee that the large language model produces results that are correct. Use the explanation with caution.

Data shared with third-party AI APIs for vulnerability explanation

The following data is shared with third-party AI APIs:

• Vulnerability title (which might contain the filename, depending on which scanner is used).
• Vulnerability identifiers.
• Filename.

Vulnerability resolution

DETAILS: Tier: Ultimate with GitLab Duo Enterprise Offering: GitLab.com, Self-managed, GitLab Dedicated Status: Beta

• Introduced in GitLab 16.7 as an experiment on GitLab.com.
• Changed to beta in GitLab 17.3.

Use GitLab Duo Vulnerability resolution to automatically create a merge request that resolves the vulnerability. By default, it is powered by Anthropic's claude-3.5-sonnet model.

We cannot guarantee that the large language model produces results that are correct. Use the explanation with caution.

Prerequisites:

• You must have the GitLab Ultimate subscription tier and GitLab Duo Enterprise..
• You must be a member of the project.
• The vulnerability must be a SAST finding by a supported analyzer:
  • GitLab supported analyzer
  • Properly integrated 3rd party SAST scanner which includes reporting both vulnerability location and CWE Identifier for each vulnerability.

Learn more about how to enable all GitLab Duo features.

To resolve the vulnerability:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Secure > Vulnerability report.
3. Optional. To remove the default filters, select Clear ({clear}).
4. Above the list of vulnerabilities, select the filter bar.
5. In the dropdown list that appears, select Tool, then select all the values in the SAST category.
6. Select outside the filter field. The vulnerability severity totals and list of matching vulnerabilities are updated.
7. Select the SAST vulnerability you want resolved.
8. In the upper-right corner, select Resolve with AI.

A merge request containing the AI remediation suggestions is opened. Review the suggested changes, then process the merge request according to your standard workflow.

Availability

Vulnerability Resolution is available for a subset of the SAST rules that we cover. We are continually testing and adding more rules to this feature.

Troubleshooting

Occasionally the Vulnerability Resolution may not work as expected. Please use the following resources to troubleshoot:

• You may be presented with a message indicating that the AI model has determined that the vulnerability is a false positive. Use this feature with caution and always verify the AI model's response.
• "Upstream" errors - this may indicate an issue with our third-party AI. Please try again, and report to GitLab if the error continues.
• General errors, such as "an unexpected error has occurred" - this may indicate an issue within GitLab Duo. Please try again, and report to GitLab if the error continues.

Data shared with third-party AI APIs for vulnerability resolution

The following data is shared with third-party AI APIs:

• Vulnerability name
• Vulnerability description
• Identifiers (CWE, OWASP)
• Entire file that contains the vulnerable lines of code
• Vulnerable lines of code (line numbers)

Vulnerability code flow

DETAILS: Tier: Ultimate Offering: GitLab.com, Self-managed, GitLab Dedicated

For some vulnerabilities detected by Advanced SAST, a Code flow tab is available. A vulnerability's code flow is the path the data takes from the user input (source) to the vulnerable line of code (sink), through all assignments, manipulation, and sanitization. This information helps you understand and evaluate the vulnerability's context, impact, and risk.

The Code flow tab shows:

• The steps from source to sink.
• The relevant files, including code snippets.

Vulnerability status values

A vulnerability's status can be:

• Detected: The default state for a newly discovered vulnerability. Appears as "Needs triage" in the UI.
• Confirmed: A user has seen this vulnerability and confirmed it to be accurate.
• Dismissed: A user has seen this vulnerability and dismissed it because it is not accurate or otherwise not to be resolved. Dismissed vulnerabilities are ignored if detected in subsequent scans.
• Resolved: The vulnerability has been fixed or is no longer present. If a resolved vulnerability is reintroduced and detected again, its record is reinstated and its status set to detected.

Vulnerability dismissal reasons

• Introduced in GitLab 15.11 with a feature flag named dismissal_reason.
• Enabled on GitLab.com in GitLab 15.11. For self-managed customers, contact Support if you would like to use this feature in GitLab 15.11.
• Enabled by default in GitLab 16.0.

When dismissing a vulnerability, one of the following reasons must be chosen to clarify why it is being dismissed:

• Acceptable risk: The vulnerability is known, and has not been remediated or mitigated, but is considered to be an acceptable business risk.
• False positive: An error in reporting in which a test result incorrectly indicates the presence of a vulnerability in a system when the vulnerability is not present.
• Mitigating control: A management, operational, or technical control (that is, safeguard or countermeasure) employed by an organization that provides equivalent or comparable protection for an information system.
• Used in tests: The finding is not a vulnerability because it is part of a test or is test data.
• Not applicable: The vulnerability is known, and has not been remediated or mitigated, but is considered to be in a part of the application that will not be updated.

Change the status of a vulnerability

• In GitLab 16.4 the ability for Developers to change the status of a vulnerability (admin_vulnerability) was deprecated. The admin_vulnerability permission will be removed, by default, from all Developer roles in GitLab 17.0.

Prerequisites:

• You must have at least the Maintainer role for the project, or a custom role with the admin_vulnerability permission.

To change a vulnerability's status from its Vulnerability Page:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.

2. Select Secure > Vulnerability report.

3. Select the vulnerability's description.

4. From the Status dropdown list select a status, then select Change status.

   In GitLab 15.11 and later, you must select a dismissal reason when you change a vulnerability's status to Dismissed.

5. Optionally, at the bottom of the page, add a comment to the log entry.

Details of the status change, including who made the change and when, are recorded in the vulnerability's action log.

Create a GitLab issue for a vulnerability

You can create a GitLab issue to track any action taken to resolve or mitigate a vulnerability. To create a GitLab issue for a vulnerability:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Secure > Vulnerability report.
3. Select the vulnerability's description.
4. Select Create issue.

The issue is created in the GitLab project with information from the vulnerability report.

To create a Jira issue, see Create a Jira issue for a vulnerability.

Linking a vulnerability to GitLab and Jira issues

You can link a vulnerability to one or more existing GitLab or Jira issues. Only one linking feature is available at the same time. Adding a link helps track the issue that resolves or mitigates a vulnerability.

Link a vulnerability to existing GitLab issues

Prerequisites:

• Jira issue integration must not be enabled.

To link a vulnerability to existing GitLab issues:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Secure > Vulnerability report.
3. Select the vulnerability's description.
4. In the Linked issues section, select the plus icon ({plus}).
5. For each issue to be linked, either:
   • Paste a link to the issue.
   • Enter the issue's ID (prefixed with a hash #).
6. Select Add.

The selected GitLab issues are added to the Linked items section, and the linked issues counter is updated.

GitLab issues linked to a vulnerability are shown in the Vulnerability Report and the vulnerability's page.

Be aware of the following conditions between a vulnerability and a linked GitLab issue:

• The vulnerability page shows related issues, but the issue page doesn't show the vulnerability it's related to.
• An issue can only be related to one vulnerability at a time.
• Issues can be linked across groups and projects.

Link a vulnerability to existing Jira issues

Prerequisites:

• Ensure the Jira issue integration is configured and the Create Jira issues for vulnerabilities checkbox is selected.

To link a vulnerability to existing Jira issues, add the following line to the Jira issue's description:

/-/security/vulnerabilities/<id>

<id> is any vulnerability ID. You can add several lines with different IDs to one description.

Jira issues with appropriate description are added to the Related Jira issues section, and the linked issues counter is updated.

Jira issues linked to a vulnerability are shown only on the vulnerability page.

Be aware of the following conditions between a vulnerability and a linked Jira issue:

• The vulnerability page and the issue page show the vulnerability they are related to.
• An issue can be related to one or more vulnerabilities at the same time.

Resolve a vulnerability

For some vulnerabilities a solution is already known but needs to be implemented manually. The Solution field in the Vulnerability page is provided by the security scanning tool that reported the security finding, or entered during the manual creation of a vulnerability. The GitLab tools utilize information from the GitLab Advisory Database.

Additionally, some tools may include a software patch to apply the suggested solution. In those instances, a vulnerability's page includes a Resolve with merge request option.

The following scanners are supported by this feature:

• Dependency Scanning. Automatic patch creation is only available for Node.js projects managed with yarn. Also, Automatic patch creation is only supported when FIPS mode is disabled.
• Container Scanning.

To resolve a vulnerability, you can either:

• Resolve a vulnerability with a merge request.
• Resolve a vulnerability manually.

Resolve a vulnerability with a merge request

To resolve the vulnerability with a merge request:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Secure > Vulnerability report.
3. Select the vulnerability's description.
4. From the Resolve with merge request dropdown list, select Resolve with merge request.

A merge request is created which applies the patch required to resolve the vulnerability. Process the merge request according to your standard workflow.

Resolve a vulnerability manually

To manually apply the patch that GitLab generated for a vulnerability:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Secure > Vulnerability report.
3. Select the vulnerability's description.
4. From the Resolve with merge request dropdown list, select Download patch to resolve.
5. Ensure your local project has the same commit checked out that was used to generate the patch.
6. Run git apply remediation.patch.
7. Verify and commit the changes to your branch.
8. Create a merge request to apply the changes to your main branch.
9. Process the merge request according to your standard workflow.

Enable security training for vulnerabilities

NOTE: Security training is not accessible in an environment that is offline, meaning computers that are isolated from the public internet as a security measure. Specifically, the GitLab server needs the ability to query the API endpoints for any training provider you choose to enable. Some third-party training vendors may require you to sign up for a free account. Sign up for an account by going to any of Secure Code Warrior, Kontra, or SecureFlag. GitLab does not send any user information to these third-party vendors; we do send the CWE or OWASP identifier and the language name of the file extension.

Security training helps your developers learn how to fix vulnerabilities. Developers can view security training from selected educational providers, relevant to the detected vulnerability.

To enable security training for vulnerabilities in your project:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Secure > Security configuration.
3. On the tab bar, select Vulnerability Management.
4. To enable a security training provider, turn on the toggle.

Each integration submits the Vulnerability identifier, for example CWE or OWASP, and the language to the security training vendor. The resulting link to the vendor training is what appears in a GitLab Vulnerability.

View security training for a vulnerability

The vulnerability page may include a training link relevant to the detected vulnerability if security training is enabled. The availability of training depends on whether the enabled training vendor has content matching the particular vulnerability. Training content is requested based on the vulnerability identifiers. The identifier given to a vulnerability varies from one vulnerability to the next and the available training content varies between vendors. Some vulnerabilities do not display training content. Vulnerabilities with a CWE are most likely to return a training result.

To view the security training for a vulnerability:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Secure > Vulnerability report.
3. Select the vulnerability for which you want to view security training.
4. Select View training.