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XwikiApplication

CVE-2023-45137

MEDIUM · 5.4 CVSS v3.1 Published 2023-10-25
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 13.4 / 14.10.12 or later.
See remediation →
58/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
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 Platform is a generic wiki platform offering runtime services for applications built on top of it. `org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-web` starting in version 3.1-milestone-2 and prior to version 13.4-rc-1, as well as `org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-web-templates` prior to versions 14.10.12 and 15.5-rc-1, are vulnerable to cross-site scripting. When trying to create a document that already exists, XWiki displays an error message in the form for creating it. Due to missing escaping, this error message is vulnerable to raw HTML injection and thus XSS. The injected code is the document reference of the existing document so this requires that the attacker first creates a non-empty document whose name contains the attack code. This has been patched in `org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-web` version 13.4-rc-1 and `org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-web-templates` versions 14.10.12 and 15.5-rc-1 by adding the appropriate escaping. The vulnerable template file `createinline.vm` is part of XWiki's WAR and can be patched by manually applying the changes from the fix.

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:>= 3.1.1, < 13.4>= 14.0, < 14.10.12>= 15.0, < 15.5= 3.1

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 13.4 / 14.10.12 / 15.5 or later
Fixed in 13.414.10.1215.5
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

14.10.12 LTS (recommended for production) or 15.5+

  1. 1. Identify your current XWiki version by checking the XWiki administration or the version.properties file in your installation.
  2. 2. For XWiki 13.x versions (< 13.4): Upgrade to version 13.4 or later (13.4, 13.10, 14.x, or 15.x).
  3. 3. For XWiki 14.0-14.10.x versions (< 14.10.12): Upgrade to version 14.10.12 or later (14.10.12, 14.x, or 15.x).
  4. 4. For XWiki 15.0-15.4 versions (< 15.5): Upgrade to version 15.5 or later (15.5 or later).
  5. 5. For XWiki 3.1.x versions (= 3.1 or >= 3.1.1): This is a very old version; upgrade to a supported stable version (14.10.12 LTS or 15.x).
  6. 6. Test the upgrade in a non-production environment first, specifically testing the document creation flow to verify the XSS fix works.
  7. 7. After upgrading, verify the createinline.vm template contains proper HTML escaping for the error message.
Caveat Major version upgrades (e.g., 13.x to 14.x to 15.x) may introduce breaking changes; review the XWiki release notes for each major version before upgrading.

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

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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-2023-45137 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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