XwikiApplication

CVE-2023-29202

CRITICAL · 9.0 CVSS v3.1 Published 2023-04-15
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 14.5 or later.
See remediation →
94/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Public exploit Remotely reachable 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
XWiki Commons are technical libraries common to several other top level XWiki projects. The RSS macro that is bundled in XWiki included the content of the feed items without any cleaning in the HTML output when the parameter `content` was set to `true`. This allowed arbitrary HTML and in particular also JavaScript injection and thus cross-site scripting (XSS) by specifying an RSS feed with malicious content. With the interaction of a user with programming rights, this could be used to execute arbitrary actions in the wiki, including privilege escalation, remote code execution, information disclosure, modifying or deleting content and sabotaging the wiki. The issue has been patched in XWiki 14.6 RC1, the content of the feed is now properly cleaned before being displayed. As a workaround, if the RSS macro isn't used in the wiki, the macro can be uninstalled by deleting `WEB-INF/lib/xwiki-platform-rendering-macro-rss-XX.jar`, where `XX` is XWiki's version, in the web application's directory.

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
XwikiApplication
Affected:> 1.8, <= 14.5= 1.8

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
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/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 a release after 14.5
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

XWiki 14.6 or later (14.6 RC1 or stable 14.6.x)

  1. Back up the current XWiki installation and database before proceeding with any changes
  2. Upgrade XWiki to version 14.6 RC1 or later (14.6 stable release recommended)
  3. After upgrade, verify that the RSS macro properly sanitizes feed content when the content parameter is set to true
  4. Confirm the RSS macro functionality works correctly with the patched version

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

We can identify the exact fixed release, upgrade, and verify it in staging — typical engagement from $1,600. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2023-29202 — 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-2023-29202 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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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