Security Resilience

CVE-2023-36477

XSS in Xwiki 14.6 – 14.10.6

Public PoCXSS
Published
30 June 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 0.0090 59th percentile
Risk Priority 68 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-2023-36477 is a critical-severity Cross-site Scripting (CWE-79) vulnerability in Xwiki Xwiki. 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 41% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

A05:2025 Injection

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

XWiki Platform is a generic wiki platform offering runtime services for applications built on top of it. Any user with edit rights can edit all pages in the `CKEditor' space. This makes it possible to perform a variety of harmful…

more

actions, such as removing technical documents, leading to loss of service and editing the javascript configuration of CKEditor, leading to persistent XSS. This issue has been patched in XWiki 14.10.6 and XWiki 15.1. This issue has been patched on the CKEditor Integration extension 1.64.9 for XWiki version older than 14.6RC1. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade may manually address the issue by restricting the `edit` and `delete` rights to a trusted user or group (e.g. the `XWiki.XWikiAdminGroup` group), implicitly disabling those rights for all other users. See commit `9d9d86179` for details.

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-2023-29205Same product: Xwiki Xwiki
CVE-2023-46732Same product: Xwiki Xwiki
CVE-2023-29201Same product: Xwiki Xwiki
CVE-2023-29206Same product: Xwiki Xwiki
CVE-2023-29515Same product: Xwiki Xwiki
CVE-2023-29506Same product: Xwiki Xwiki
CVE-2022-36098Same product: Xwiki Xwiki
CVE-2023-26480Same product: Xwiki Xwiki
CVE-2023-40176Same product: Xwiki Xwiki
CVE-2023-35162Same product: Xwiki Xwiki

Affected Assets

xwiki
ckeditor integration
1.9 — 1.64.9
xwiki
xwiki
15.0 · 14.6 — 14.10.6

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