Security Resilience

CVE-2023-53688

XSS in Nagios Xi ≤ 5.11.3

Public PoCXSSCSRF
Published
30 October 2025
Modified
05 November 2025
CVSS Score v4 5.1
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
EPSS Score 0.0032 23th percentile
Risk Priority 35 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-2023-53688 is a medium-severity Cross-site Scripting (CWE-79) vulnerability in Nagios Nagios Xi. Its CVSS base score is 5.1 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Protocol or Service Impersonation (T1001.003); ranked at the 23th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

A01:2025 Broken Access ControlA05:2025 Injection

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Nagios XI versions prior to 5.11.3 are vulnerable to cross-site scripting (XSS) and cross-site request forgery (CSRF) via the Hypermap Replay component. An attacker can submit crafted input that is not properly validated or escaped, allowing injection of malicious script…

more

that executes in the context of a victim's browser (XSS). Additionally, the component does not enforce sufficient anti-CSRF protections on state-changing operations, enabling an attacker to induce authenticated users to perform unwanted actions.

CWE(s)
CWE-79CWE-352

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 →
T1003.002 Security Account Manager Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to extract credential material from the Security Account Manager (SAM) database either through in-memory techniques or through the Windows Registry where the SAM database is stored.
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 →
T1003.007 Proc Filesystem Credential Access
Adversaries may gather credentials from the proc filesystem or `/proc`.
attack.mitre.org →
T1005 Data from Local System Collection
Adversaries may search local system sources, such as file systems, configuration files, local databases, virtual machine files, or process memory, to find files of interest and sensitive data prior to Exfiltration.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-31452Same product class: network monitoring / SIEM
CVE-2023-6529Shared CWE-352, CWE-79
CVE-2024-7816Shared CWE-352, CWE-79
CVE-2024-38724Shared CWE-352, CWE-79
CVE-2024-44064Shared CWE-352, CWE-79
CVE-2023-49965Shared CWE-352, CWE-79
CVE-2023-51063Shared CWE-352, CWE-79
CVE-2024-7687Shared CWE-352, CWE-79
CVE-2024-54139Shared CWE-352, CWE-79
CVE-2023-45992Shared CWE-352, CWE-79

Affected Assets

nagios
nagios xi
≤ 5.11.3

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)
  • V3.3.2
  • V3.5.1
  • V10.2.1
  • V1.1.2

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

SA-11 Developer Testing and Evaluation good match

Developer testing and evaluation can discover missing or incorrect input neutralization through targeted web-application tests.

SI-10 Information Input Validation good match

Input validation directly enforces neutralization of untrusted data before it reaches web output generation.

SI-15 Information Output Filtering good match

Output filtering can catch or sanitize unneutralized script content before it is served to users.

AC-3 Access Enforcement partial match

Access enforcement requires verifying that state-changing requests originate from the authenticated user rather than a forged cross-site source.

SC-23 Session Authenticity partial match

Protecting session authenticity prevents attackers from replaying or forging authenticated requests via the victim's browser.

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