CVE-2024-7053
Published: 20 March 2025
Summary
CVE-2024-7053 is a critical-severity Cross-site Scripting (CWE-79) vulnerability in Openwebui Open Webui. Its CVSS base score is 9.0 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 46.0th 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 are NIST 800-53 CM-6 (Configuration Settings) and SC-23 (Session Authenticity).
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI
Requires secure configuration settings for session cookies, including Secure flag and strict SameSite attributes, directly addressing the misconfiguration enabling cross-origin transmission.
Protects communications session authenticity against hijacking via stolen session cookies, mitigating the session fixation and takeover attack.
Ensures confidentiality and integrity of transmitted session data over secure channels like HTTPS, preventing insecure HTTP transmission of cookies to cross-origin domains.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Vulnerability enables stealing web session cookies via malicious markdown image (T1539), facilitating privilege escalation from user to admin (T1068) and use of stolen cookie as alternate auth material (T1550.004).
NVD Description
A vulnerability in open-webui/open-webui version 0.3.8 allows an attacker with a user-level account to perform a session fixation attack. The session cookie for all users is set with the default `SameSite=Lax` and does not have the `Secure` flag enabled, allowing…
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the session cookie to be sent over HTTP to a cross-origin domain. An attacker can exploit this by embedding a malicious markdown image in a chat, which, when viewed by an administrator, sends the admin's session cookie to the attacker's server. This can lead to a stealthy administrator account takeover, potentially resulting in remote code execution (RCE) due to the elevated privileges of administrator accounts.
Deeper analysisAI
CVE-2024-7053 is a vulnerability in open-webui/open-webui version 0.3.8 that enables a session fixation attack due to improper session cookie configuration. The session cookie for all users uses the default SameSite=Lax attribute without the Secure flag, permitting it to be transmitted over HTTP to cross-origin domains. This misconfiguration, linked to CWE-79, allows attackers to steal session cookies through crafted content.
An attacker with a user-level account can exploit this by embedding a malicious markdown image in a chat. When an administrator views the chat, the image triggers a request that sends the admin's session cookie to the attacker's server. This enables stealthy takeover of the administrator account, which carries elevated privileges and could lead to remote code execution (RCE). The vulnerability has a CVSS v3.1 score of 9.0 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H), requiring low privileges, network access, and user interaction.
The primary advisory is documented in a Huntr bounty report at https://huntr.com/bounties/947f8191-0abf-4adf-b7c4-d4c19683aba2, which details the issue but does not specify patch availability or mitigation steps in the provided information.
Open WebUI is a web interface for self-hosted large language models, making this vulnerability relevant to AI/ML deployments where administrative access could expose model configurations or enable broader system compromise. No real-world exploitation has been reported as of the CVE publication on 2025-03-20.
Details
- CWE(s)