CVE-2023-33961
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 · uneditedLeantime is a lean open source project management system. Starting in version 2.3.21, an authenticated user with commenting privileges can inject malicious Javascript into a comment. Once the malicious comment is loaded in the browser by a user, the malicious Javascript code executes. As of time of publication, a patch does not exist.
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 · high confidenceThis is a stored (persistent) Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Leantime's commenting feature. Starting in version 2.3.21, an authenticated user with commenting privileges can inject malicious JavaScript into a comment field. The injected script executes in the browsers of other users who view the comment.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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>= 2.3.21CVSS 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
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify Leantime installationLocate the Leantime application in your environment. Check the file system for the Leantime installation directory or identify the service hosting the application.Affected if Leantime is present in the environment
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Determine installed Leantime versionLocate the version file or check the application metadata (typically in a version.php, composer.json, or the admin dashboard under System Info) to find the running Leantime version number.Affected if Installed version is 2.3.21 or higher
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Confirm commenting feature is activeCheck if the commenting module is enabled. This can be done by logging in as a standard user and attempting to access the comment functionality on projects, tickets, or ideas, or by inspecting the database settings table for comment-related configuration flags.Affected if Commenting feature is enabled and accessible to users
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Verify user commenting privilegesLog in as an authenticated user with standard or lower privileges and verify whether the commenting interface is available on any entity (tickets, projects, ideas, etc.). Check user role permissions in the admin settings.Affected if Authenticated users have the ability to post comments
Your environment is affected if you are running Leantime version 2.3.21 or higher with the commenting feature enabled and users have commenting privileges.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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.
From vendor dataImplement robust input validation and output encoding/sanitization on all comment fields. Until an official patch is released, consider restricting commenting privileges to trusted users or temporarily disabling the commenting feature.
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation6.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $3,984.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2023-33961 — 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 sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2023-33961 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- 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