CVE-2023-26471
Xwiki 11.6 – 13.10.10
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/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-2023-26471 is a critical-severity Improper Access Control (CWE-284) vulnerability in Xwiki Xwiki. Its CVSS base score is 9.9 (Critical).
Operationally, ranked in the top 41% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV 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.
XWiki Platform contains an improper access control flaw in its comment rendering logic beginning with version 11.6-rc-1. Comments are intended to run under superadmin privileges but inside a restricted execution context that disables dangerous operations; however, the async macro ignores the restricted-mode flag and therefore permits arbitrary wiki content to execute without those safeguards.
Any authenticated user possessing only comment rights can therefore invoke the async macro to obtain full superadmin execution on the wiki, resulting in complete confidentiality, integrity, and availability impact across the instance. The CVSS 9.9 score reflects the network-reachable, low-complexity nature of the attack and its scope change to the underlying system.
Official patches are available in XWiki 14.9, 14.4.6, and 13.10.10; the sole documented workaround is to apply the referenced patch, rebuild, and redeploy the org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-rendering-async-macro artifact. The EPSS score has remained flat at 0.1105 with no material increase after disclosure.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-0963
Vulnerability Data
XWiki Platform is a generic wiki platform. Starting in version 11.6-rc-1, comments are supposed to be executed with the right of superadmin but in restricted mode (anything dangerous is disabled), but the async macro does not take into account the…
more
restricted mode. This means that any user with comment right can use the async macro to make it execute any wiki content with the right of superadmin. This has been patched in XWiki 14.9, 14.4.6, and 13.10.10. The only known workaround consists of applying a patch and rebuilding and redeploying `org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-rendering-async-macro`.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
CVEs Like This One
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.
The access control policy and procedures directly mandate and enforce proper access control mechanisms across the organization.
Device lock enforces restricted access until re-authentication, directly reducing unauthorized use of active sessions.
Supervision and review of access control activities directly detects and remediates improper access configurations or usages.
Explicitly identifying and documenting actions permitted without identification or authentication enforces proper access control boundaries by defining justified exceptions.
By automatically labeling outputs with security attributes, the control supports attribute-based enforcement and reduces exploitability of improper access control weaknesses.
Associating and retaining security attributes with data directly supports enforcement of access control decisions across storage, processing, and transmission.
Requiring prior authorization for each remote access type prevents improper access control over remote connections.
Requiring authorization of wireless access before allowing connections enforces proper access control for this access method.
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.
A.5.1 only requires that an information security policy and topic-specific policies (including on access control) exist and are reviewed; it does not itself enforce, implement or act on any access restriction, so the weakness can still be exploited (per the owner's explicit rule that governance/dependency clauses score none on effect verbs).
A.5.15 directly mandates determining requirements, defining/implementing topic-specific access control policy+rules (with explicit references to 8.3, 5.16, 5.18), and enforcing authorized access while preventing unauthorized access, which squarely stops exploitation of most CWE-284 instances; the bounded remainder is the physical slice (explicitly delegated to 7.2-7.4) plus any second-order defects like path traversal that are not authorization decisions.
A.5.16's identity lifecycle (unique binding, timely disable/remove, no duplicates, oversight of shared/non-human) directly stops most improper access by ensuring the actor in an access decision is correctly identified and authorized; the bounded remainder is non-identity mechanisms in CWE-284 such as path traversal or CSRF that do not turn on actor identity at all.
A.5.18 directly governs the provisioning, review, adjustment and timely revocation of both physical and logical access rights per business rules, segregation of duties and risk-evaluated changes/terminations; this stops most unauthorized-actor exploitation paths named by CWE-284, with a bounded remainder (e.g. path-traversal or CSRF cases that are not authorization decisions at all)
A.5.2 defines and assigns roles/responsibilities for protection of information and risk acceptance; it does not itself enforce any access decision and cannot stop exploitation of improper access control (per the owner's labeling rule: governance/dependency clauses do not score on prevent/mitigate verbs)
Ongoing audits and performance reviews of suppliers detect and correct situations where access controls or privilege assignments are weaker than contractually required, limiting an attacker's ability to exploit improper access control in the supplier's environment.
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.