Vulnerability Database

362,176

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2022-41933 — xwiki / xwiki

Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information

XWiki Platform is a generic wiki platform offering runtime services for applications built on top of it. When the reset a forgotten password feature of XWiki was used, the password was then stored in plain text in database. This only concerns XWiki 13.1RC1 and newer versions. Note that it only concerns the reset password feature available from the "Forgot your password" link in the login view: the features allowing a user to change their password, or for an admin to change a user password are not impacted. This vulnerability is particularly dangerous in combination with other vulnerabilities allowing to perform data leak of personal data from users, such as GHSA-599v-w48h-rjrm. Note that this vulnerability only concerns the users of the main wiki: in case of farms, the users registered on subwiki are not impacted thanks to a bug we discovered when investigating this. The problem has been patched in version 14.6RC1, 14.4.3 and 13.10.8. The patch involves a migration of the impacted users as well as the history of the page, to ensure no password remains in plain text in the database. This migration also involves to inform the users about the possible disclosure of their passwords: by default, two emails are automatically sent to the impacted users. A first email to inform about the possibility that their password have been leaked, and a second email using the reset password feature to ask them to set a new password. It's also possible for administrators to set some properties for the migration: it's possible to decide if the user password should be reset (default) or if the passwords should be kept but only hashed. Note that in the first option, the users won't be able to login anymore until they set a new password if they were impacted. Note that in both options, mails will be sent to users to inform them and encourage them to change their passwords.

CVSS v3:

  • Severity: Medium
  • Score: 6.2
  • AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N

Frequently Asked Questions

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.

Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.