Vulnerability Database

362,176

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2023-45137 — org.xwiki.platform / xwiki-platform-web-templates

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

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.

CVSS v3:

  • Severity: Critical
  • Score: 9
  • AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

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.