CVE-2023-31126
Published: 09 May 2023
Summary
CVE-2023-31126 is a critical-severity Improper Neutralization of Invalid Characters in Identifiers in Web Pages (CWE-86) vulnerability in Xwiki Xwiki. Its CVSS base score is 9.0 (Critical).
Operationally, ranked in the top 4.1% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
Deeper analysis
The vulnerability is a cross-site scripting flaw in the HTML sanitizer component of org.xwiki.commons:xwiki-commons-xml, the XML library used by the XWiki open-source wiki platform. Introduced with version 14.6-rc-1, the sanitizer permits arbitrary HTML injection through invalid data attributes; the issue does not affect restricted cleaning modes in HTMLCleaner, where characters such as / and > are stripped from attribute names.
An attacker with low privileges can supply crafted input containing malicious data attributes to achieve reflected or stored XSS, resulting in high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability as reflected in the CVSS 9.0 score.
Advisories and patches from the XWiki project state that the problem is resolved in versions 14.10.4 and 15.0 RC1 by restricting data attribute names to allowed characters; the corresponding fixes are documented in the referenced GitHub commits and XCOMMONS-2606 Jira ticket, with no workarounds other than upgrading.
The EPSS score remains flat at its peak value of 0.2162 with no material upward trajectory after disclosure.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-1603
Vulnerability details
`org.xwiki.commons:xwiki-commons-xml` is an XML library used by the open-source wiki platform XWiki. The HTML sanitizer, introduced in version 14.6-rc-1, allows the injection of arbitrary HTML code and thus cross-site scripting via invalid data attributes. This vulnerability does not affect restricted…
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cleaning in HTMLCleaner as there attributes are cleaned and thus characters like `/` and `>` are removed in all attribute names. This problem has been patched in XWiki 14.10.4 and 15.0 RC1 by making sure that data attributes only contain allowed characters. There are no known workarounds apart from upgrading to a version including the fix.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
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.
Penetration testing submits XSS payloads to web applications, detecting cross-site scripting flaws for subsequent remediation.
Validates web inputs to reject script-related content that could produce XSS.
Output validation against expected content can reject or sanitize script content in generated web pages, reducing XSS exploitability.