Security Resilience

CVE-2023-29528

XSS in Xwiki Commons 4.3 – 14.10

Public PoCXSS
Published
20 April 2023
Modified
21 November 2024
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 9.0
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.013 69th percentile
Risk Priority 69 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2023-29528 is a critical-severity Cross-site Scripting (CWE-79) vulnerability in Xwiki Commons. Its CVSS base score is 9.0 (Critical).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Protocol or Service Impersonation (T1001.003); ranked in the top 31% 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.

The vulnerability is a cross-site scripting flaw (CWE-79) in the restricted mode of the HTML cleaner within XWiki Commons, the shared technical libraries used by multiple XWiki projects. Introduced in version 4.2-milestone-1 and further modified in 14.6-rc-1, the cleaner failed to sanitize invalid HTML comments, permitting arbitrary HTML and JavaScript injection in any code that depended on restricted mode for security filtering.

An attacker can supply malicious HTML containing crafted comments that bypass the restricted-mode checks. When a privileged user possessing programming rights subsequently views the injected content, the embedded JavaScript executes in that user's session context, enabling server-side code execution with full programming rights and thereby compromising the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the XWiki instance.

Advisories and patches state that the issue is resolved in XWiki 14.10 by removing HTML comments entirely in restricted mode and adding an explicit check preventing comments that begin with ">". No workarounds are documented other than upgrading to a fixed release. The EPSS score reached a peak of 0.0578 before receding to its current value of 0.0316, indicating limited but observable post-disclosure interest that has since declined.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

A05:2025 Injection

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

XWiki Commons are technical libraries common to several other top level XWiki projects. The "restricted" mode of the HTML cleaner in XWiki, introduced in version 4.2-milestone-1 and massively improved in version 14.6-rc-1, allowed the injection of arbitrary HTML code and…

more

thus cross-site scripting via invalid HTML comments. As a consequence, any code relying on this "restricted" mode for security is vulnerable to JavaScript injection ("cross-site scripting"/XSS). When a privileged user with programming rights visits such a comment in XWiki, the malicious JavaScript code is executed in the context of the user session. This allows server-side code execution with programming rights, impacting the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the XWiki instance. This problem has been patched in XWiki 14.10, HTML comments are now removed in restricted mode and a check has been introduced that ensures that comments don't start with `>`. There are no known workarounds apart from upgrading to a version including the fix.

CWE(s)
CWE-79

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1001.003 Protocol or Service Impersonation Command And Control
Adversaries may impersonate legitimate protocols or web service traffic to disguise command and control activity and thwart analysis efforts.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.004 LSA Secrets Credential Access
Adversaries with SYSTEM access to a host may attempt to access Local Security Authority (LSA) secrets, which can contain a variety of different credential materials, such as credentials for service accounts.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.005 Cached Domain Credentials Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access cached domain credentials used to allow authentication to occur in the event a domain controller is unavailable.
attack.mitre.org →
T1007 System Service Discovery Discovery
Adversaries may try to gather information about registered local system services.
attack.mitre.org →
T1011 Exfiltration Over Other Network Medium Exfiltration
Adversaries may attempt to exfiltrate data over a different network medium than the command and control channel.
attack.mitre.org →
T1012 Query Registry Discovery
Adversaries may interact with the Windows Registry to gather information about the system, configuration, and installed software.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-36471Same product: Xwiki Commons
CVE-2023-29205Same vendor: Xwiki
CVE-2023-46732Same vendor: Xwiki
CVE-2023-36477Same vendor: Xwiki
CVE-2023-45138Same vendor: Xwiki
CVE-2023-29201Same vendor: Xwiki
CVE-2023-29206Same vendor: Xwiki
CVE-2023-29515Same vendor: Xwiki
CVE-2023-29506Same vendor: Xwiki
CVE-2022-36098Same vendor: Xwiki

Affected Assets

xwiki
commons
4.2 · 4.3 — 14.10

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

—

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V1.1.2
  • V1.3.2

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.

CA-8 Penetration Testing
addresses: CWE-79

Penetration testing submits XSS payloads to web applications, detecting cross-site scripting flaws for subsequent remediation.

SI-10 Information Input Validation
addresses: CWE-79

Validates web inputs to reject script-related content that could produce XSS.

SI-15 Information Output Filtering
addresses: CWE-79

Output validation against expected content can reject or sanitize script content in generated web pages, reducing XSS exploitability.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
blocks

Secure SDLC practices directly target introduction of XSS via coding standards/testing (mostly), yet the single broad outcome leaves many specific neutralization vectors unaddressed (partial).

PR.PS-02 partial match
blocks

Patching and EOL replacement can remediate known XSS instances in libraries or frameworks (partial) but do nothing to enforce input neutralization in application code (none).

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.5.14 Information transfer partial match
removes
A.5.15 Access control partial match
removes
A.5.16 Identity management partial match
removes
A.5.17 Authentication information partial match
removes
A.5.18 Access rights partial match
removes
A.5.6 Contact with special interest groups partial match
blocks

A.5.6 only promotes membership in groups to improve knowledge, receive alerts, and share information; it performs no action that stops XSS exploitation (or even the underlying neutralization defect) and is a pure dependency for other controls per the owner's labeling rule.

References