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XperienceApplication · Kentico

CVE-2023-53736

MEDIUM · 5.4 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-12-18
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 13.0.120 or later.
See remediation →
58/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
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
A reflected cross-site scripting vulnerability in Kentico Xperience allows authenticated users to inject malicious scripts in the administration interface. Attackers can exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary scripts within the administrative context.

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 confidence

A reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Kentico Xperience allows authenticated users to inject malicious JavaScript through the administration interface. The flaw enables script execution within the administrative context, potentially allowing session hijacking or administrative actions on behalf of the authenticated user.

MitigationApply the vendor patch for CVE-2023-53736 and implement proper input validation and output encoding for all user-supplied parameters in the Kentico Xperience admin interface.

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
XperienceApplication
Affected:<= 13.0.120

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

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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Check Kentico Xperience version
    Locate the version information for your Kentico Xperience installation. This is typically found in the CMS system within the administration panel under 'About' or in the installation files (often in a version.json, AssemblyInfo.cs, or the CMS assembly metadata). Compare your installed version to the affected range: any version <= 13.0.120 is potentially affected.
    Affected if Your installed Kentico Xperience version is 13.0.120 or lower.
  2. Verify admin interface is accessible
    Confirm that the Kentico Xperience administration interface (typically at /CMSPages or /Admin path) is exposed and accessible from your environment. Check your web server configuration, IIS settings, or network access controls for routes serving the admin application.
    Affected if The Kentico Xperience admin interface is exposed and reachable.
  3. Confirm user authentication is enabled
    Determine if the Kentico Xperience CMS is configured to allow user authentication to the admin interface. Check your membership/provider settings and verify that user login functionality for the administration panel is not disabled.
    Affected if Users can authenticate to the Kentico Xperience admin interface.
  4. Identify exposed admin parameters
    Review your web application firewall (WAF) logs, IIS logs, or application logs for requests to the admin interface that contain user-supplied parameters in the URL query string. Look for parameters that might reflect input back to the user without proper encoding.
    Affected if You find admin interface endpoints that reflect query string parameters in their response without encoding.

You are affected if your Kentico Xperience installation is version 13.0.120 or lower AND the admin interface is accessible to authenticated users who could inject malicious script through reflected parameters.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 13.0.120
Interim mitigation

Apply the vendor patch for CVE-2023-53736 and implement proper input validation and output encoding for all user-supplied parameters in the Kentico Xperience admin interface.

Recommended fix Moderate confidence

Kentico Xperience 13.0.121 or later

  1. Identify the current Kentico Xperience version in your environment
  2. Obtain the latest stable version of Kentico Xperience (version 13.0.121 or higher, which contains the fix for CVE-2023-53736)
  3. Backup your database and application files before upgrading
  4. Follow Kentico's upgrade documentation to apply the update
  5. Verify the upgrade was successful and test the administration interface
  6. Confirm the XSS vulnerability is resolved by checking that user input in the admin interface is properly sanitized
Caveat Review Kentico release notes for any breaking changes between your current version and the target version; minor version upgrades typically have minimal breaking changes

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

Fix this in Xperience Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation3.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing4.0 h
  • Review / QA3.0 h
18.0 hours of engineering $3,180
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $5,088.

Scan for this in your stack

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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-2023-53736 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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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