dbcve.org
GoApplication · Golang

CVE-2023-24538

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2023-04-06
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 1.19.8 / 1.20.3 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

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
Templates do not properly consider backticks (`) as Javascript string delimiters, and do not escape them as expected. Backticks are used, since ES6, for JS template literals. If a template contains a Go template action within a Javascript template literal, the contents of the action can be used to terminate the literal, injecting arbitrary Javascript code into the Go template. As ES6 template literals are rather complex, and themselves can do string interpolation, the decision was made to simply disallow Go template actions from being used inside of them (e.g. "var a = {{.}}"), since there is no obviously safe way to allow this behavior. This takes the same approach as github.com/google/safehtml. With fix, Template.Parse returns an Error when it encounters templates like this, with an ErrorCode of value 12. This ErrorCode is currently unexported, but will be exported in the release of Go 1.21. Users who rely on the previous behavior can re-enable it using the GODEBUG flag jstmpllitinterp=1, with the caveat that backticks will now be escaped. This should be used with caution.

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-94

The application evaluates attacker-influenced input as code, handing them a way to run logic inside the process. Depending on the runtime this can escalate directly to remote code execution. Remediation means removing dynamic evaluation of untrusted input and replacing it with safe, data-driven alternatives.

General guidance for the code injection 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
GoApplication
Affected:< 1.19.8>= 1.20.0, < 1.20.3

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
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

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

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 1.19.8 / 1.20.3 or later
Fixed in 1.19.81.20.3
Vendor patch go.dev →
Recommended fix High confidence

Go 1.19.8 or later, or Go 1.20.3 or later (prefer latest stable)

  1. Check current Go version using: go version
  2. Upgrade Go to version 1.19.8 or later, or 1.20.3 or later (preferably the latest stable release)
  3. Download and install the updated Go version from https://go.dev/dl/
  4. Rebuild all applications that use html/template with Go templates
  5. Test applications to verify templates parse correctly; templates using Go actions inside JS template literals will now return ErrorCode 12
  6. If legitimate templates are broken, review and refactor them to not use Go template actions inside JavaScript template literals (e.g., avoid patterns like `var a = {{.}}`)
  7. As a temporary workaround if needed, set environment variable GODEBUG=jstmpllitinterp=1 (use with caution)
Caveat Templates using Go template actions inside JavaScript template literals will now fail to parse with ErrorCode 12; such patterns must be refactored; the GODEBUG workaround escapes backticks rather than allowing unsafe interpolation

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

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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-2023-24538 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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