CVE-2023-22518
Access Control in Atlassian Confluence Data Center 1.0 – 7.19.16
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2023-22518 is a critical-severity Incorrect Authorization (CWE-863) vulnerability in Atlassian Confluence Data Center. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, ranked in the top 0.0% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; CISA has added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
CVE-2023-22518 is an improper authorization vulnerability, tracked under CWE-863, that affects all versions of Confluence Data Center and Server. The flaw permits an unauthenticated attacker to reset a Confluence instance and provision a new instance administrator account, after which any administrative actions become possible and result in complete loss of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Atlassian Cloud sites hosted under atlassian.net domains are explicitly unaffected.
An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit the issue over the network with low attack complexity to obtain full administrative control of the affected Confluence deployment. Once the administrator account is created, the attacker can perform any instance-level operations, including data exfiltration, modification, or destruction.
Atlassian has published official advisories and a Jira issue detailing the vulnerability and associated mitigation steps; practitioners should consult the referenced Atlassian pages for patch availability and recommended actions.
The EPSS score reached a peak of 0.9708 and remains at 0.9437, reflecting sustained high exploitation interest after public disclosure, with exploit code appearing in public repositories such as Packet Storm.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-26658
Vulnerability Data
All versions of Confluence Data Center and Server are affected by this unexploited vulnerability. This Improper Authorization vulnerability allows an unauthenticated attacker to reset Confluence and create a Confluence instance administrator account. Using this account, an attacker can then perform…
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all administrative actions that are available to Confluence instance administrator leading to - but not limited to - full loss of confidentiality, integrity and availability. Atlassian Cloud sites are not affected by this vulnerability. If your Confluence site is accessed via an atlassian.net domain, it is hosted by Atlassian and is not vulnerable to this issue.
- CWE(s)
- KEV Date Added
- 07 November 2023
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Threat-Actor AttributionAI
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Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Periodic review and update of procedures reduces incorrect authorization implementations over time.
Supervision identifies cases where authorization logic incorrectly permits unauthorized actions.
Defining permitted attribute values and auditing modifications reduces the chance of incorrect authorization outcomes due to tampered or missing labels.
The authorization process and usage restrictions help prevent incorrect authorization for remote access types.
Establishing configuration and connection requirements helps ensure correct rather than incorrect authorization for wireless access.
Establishing connection authorization processes for mobile devices helps ensure authorization decisions are correctly implemented rather than incorrect.
Monitoring account use, notifying on changes, and reviewing accounts for compliance corrects incorrect authorization assignments.
Ensures authorization decisions for external system use are correctly implemented and enforced.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Requiring consistency between access rights and classification plus formal approval steps ensures that the authorization logic correctly distinguishes between entities that should and should not be granted access.
A.5.18's provisioning, revocation, review and adjustment of access rights (incl. before role changes/termination, with segregation and owner approval) directly stops incorrect authorization decisions from being exploitable in the vast majority of cases; the bounded remainder is incorrectness inside the authorization logic itself (e.g. flawed conditional or missing check) rather than rights that were wrongly granted.
A.8.3 directly mandates restricting access to information per policies via configuration, identity/group controls, isolation, and dynamic techniques that enforce correct authorization decisions, addressing most but not all slices of CWE-863 (e.g., remainder in non-access-decision authorization errors like timing or environmental factors).
Hardening callouts derived
DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.
- No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-863, a class-level weakness, and none of its children carries one either.