CVE-2023-36881
Published: 08 August 2023
Summary
CVE-2023-36881 is a medium-severity Cross-site Scripting (CWE-79) vulnerability in Microsoft Azure Hdinsight. Its CVSS base score is 4.5 (Medium).
Operationally, ranked in the top 48.2% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
Deeper analysis
CVE-2023-36881 is a spoofing vulnerability affecting Azure Apache Ambari. It carries a CVSS 3.1 score of 4.5 and is associated with CWE-79, indicating the potential for improper neutralization of input during web page generation.
An attacker with high privileges can exploit the flaw over a network with low attack complexity, provided user interaction occurs. Successful exploitation allows modification of data without affecting confidentiality or availability.
Microsoft Security Response Center advisories at https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2023-36881 address the issue. The EPSS score rose materially from a low baseline to a peak of 0.0741 on 2025-01-22 before receding to the current value of 0.0028, indicating a period of increased exploitation interest after disclosure.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-40801
Vulnerability details
Azure Apache Ambari Spoofing Vulnerability
- 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.