Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:HSummary
CVE-2025-32973 is a critical-severity Missing Authorization (CWE-862) vulnerability in Xwiki Xwiki. 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 31th 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 AC-24 (Access Control Decisions) and AC-25 (Reference Monitor) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
XWiki is a generic wiki platform affected by an authorization flaw tracked as CVE-2025-32973. In releases 15.9-rc-1 through 15.10.11, 16.0.0-rc-1 through 16.4.2, and 16.5.0-rc-1 through 16.7.x, the platform fails to display any warning when a user holding programming rights edits a page whose most recent author lacked those rights yet contains an XWiki.ComponentClass object; the edit therefore silently confers programming rights on the object. The issue is classified under CWE-862 and carries a CVSS 3.1 score of 9.0.
An attacker who possesses only edit rights on a single page can insert a malicious ComponentClass object and then rely on any administrator or programming-rights user subsequently editing that page to activate the object, thereby obtaining full programming rights on the wiki. No other interaction or privilege escalation path is required beyond the initial placement and the subsequent edit by a privileged user.
Public advisories and the accompanying patches state that the vulnerability is resolved in XWiki 15.10.12, 16.4.3, and 16.8.0-rc-1. The fix and associated commit are documented in the GitHub Security Advisory GHSA-x7wv-5qg4-vmr6 and the linked XWiki Jira ticket XWIKI-22460.
EPSS for the CVE rose from a low baseline to a peak of 0.0224 on 2026-02-24 before receding to the current value of 0.0058, indicating a measurable increase in exploitation interest after disclosure.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-12741
Vulnerability Data
XWiki is a generic wiki platform. In versions starting from 15.9-rc-1 to before 15.10.12, from 16.0.0-rc-1 to before 16.4.3, and from 16.5.0-rc-1 to before 16.8.0-rc-1, when a user with programming rights edits a document in XWiki that was last edited…
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by a user without programming rights and contains an XWiki.ComponentClass, there is no warning that this will grant programming rights to this object. An attacker who created such a malicious object could use this to gain programming rights on the wiki. For this, the attacker needs to have edit rights on at least one page to place this object and then get an admin user to edit that document. This issue has been patched in versions 15.10.12, 16.4.3, and 16.8.0-rc-1.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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- 5 hardening rules · 3 OS baselines
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Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
AC-3 directly requires enforcement of authorization decisions on every access request, structurally eliminating missing authorization checks.
AC-24 mandates that access control decisions are applied to each request, preventing bypass of authorization logic.
AC-25 requires a tamperproof, always-invoked reference monitor that ensures authorization checks cannot be omitted.
AC-6 reduces the set of actions reachable without proper authorization, limiting blast radius of missing checks.
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.
Explicitly requires defining, enforcing, and reviewing authorizations and least privilege, directly preventing missing authorization checks.
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.
Requiring authentication and credentials before any access occurs eliminates the absence of authorization checks that would otherwise allow an unauthenticated actor to reach protected resources.
Requiring formal authorization of every access request before rights are granted ensures that checks for required permissions are performed, preventing missing authorization checks from being introduced.
Mandatory authorization checks and central records of granted rights ensure that every access attempt is preceded by an explicit decision rather than relying on missing checks.
Segregating the approval of access rights from their implementation provides an independent check that reduces the impact of missing authorization checks in the resulting system configuration.
By requiring competent outsiders to verify that every function enforces the need-to-know principle, the control lowers the likelihood that missing authorization checks persist undetected.
Defining authorization responsibilities and reviewing risk-treatment progress throughout the project lifecycle catches missing authorization checks before the system is deployed.
Hardening callouts derived
Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).
Oracle Linux 8 (2 rules)
- V-248581 OL 8 must require users to provide a password for privilege escalation. prevents CWE-862
- V-252656 The OL 8 operating system must not be configured to bypass password requirements for privilege escalation. prevents CWE-862
RHEL 7 (2 rules)
- V-251704 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must not be configured to bypass password requirements for privilege escalation. prevents CWE-862
- V-204429 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that users must provide a password for privilege escalation. prevents CWE-862