ViewvcApplication

CVE-2023-22464

MEDIUM · 5.4 CVSS v3.1 Published 2023-01-04
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 1.1.30 / 1.2.3 or later.
See remediation →
58/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Public exploit Remotely reachable

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
ViewVC is a browser interface for CVS and Subversion version control repositories. Versions prior to 1.2.3 and 1.1.30 are vulnerable to cross-site scripting. The impact of this vulnerability is mitigated by the need for an attacker to have commit privileges to a Subversion repository exposed by an otherwise trusted ViewVC instance. The attack vector involves files with unsafe names (names that, when embedded into an HTML stream, would cause the browser to run unwanted code), which themselves can be challenging to create. Users should update to at least version 1.2.3 (if they are using a 1.2.x version of ViewVC) or 1.1.30 (if they are using a 1.1.x version). ViewVC 1.0.x is no longer supported, so users of that release lineage should implement one of the following workarounds. Users can edit their ViewVC EZT view templates to manually HTML-escape changed path "copyfrom paths" during rendering. Locate in your template set's `revision.ezt` file references to those changed paths, and wrap them with `[format "html"]` and `[end]`. For most users, that means that references to `[changes.copy_path]` will become `[format "html"][changes.copy_path][end]`. (This workaround should be reverted after upgrading to a patched version of ViewVC, else "copyfrom path" names will be doubly escaped.)

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-79

Untrusted input is placed into a web page without being neutralised, so an attacker's markup or script executes in another user's browser. That can hijack sessions, capture keystrokes, or silently perform actions as the victim. Fixing it properly means context-aware output encoding everywhere data meets HTML, backed by a content-security policy as a second line of defence.

General guidance for the cross-site scripting (xss) class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
ViewvcApplication
Affected:< 1.1.30>= 1.2.0, < 1.2.3

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
Required
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 1.1.30 / 1.2.3 or later
Fixed in 1.1.301.2.3
Recommended fix High confidence

ViewVC 1.2.3 (for 1.2.x users) or ViewVC 1.1.30 (for 1.1.x users)

  1. 1. Determine the current ViewVC version by checking the installed software or configuration.
  2. 2. If running ViewVC 1.2.x: upgrade to version 1.2.3 or later.
  3. 3. If running ViewVC 1.1.x: upgrade to version 1.1.30 or later.
  4. 4. If running ViewVC 1.0.x (unsupported): manually edit the revision.ezt template file in your ViewVC template set, locate references to [changes.copy_path], and wrap them with [format "html"][changes.copy_path][end] to HTML-escape the output.
  5. 5. After upgrading from a vulnerable version, verify that any previously applied manual template workarounds are reverted to prevent double-escaping of copyfrom path names.
  6. 6. Test the upgraded ViewVC instance to confirm the XSS vulnerability is resolved and the interface functions correctly.
Caveat If manual template workarounds were applied for ViewVC 1.0.x, these must be removed after upgrading to avoid double-escaping of path names; the upgrade itself should not introduce breaking changes but requires testing to verify normal operation.

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $900. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2023-22464 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2023-22464 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.

What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data