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CVE-2023-48240

XWiki Platform sends cookies to external images in rendered diff and is vulnerable to server side request forgery

9.1 CriticalFix available

XWiki Platform is a generic wiki platform. The rendered diff in XWiki embeds images to be able to compare the contents and not display a difference for an actually unchanged image. For this, XWiki requests all embedded images on the server side. These requests are also sent for images from other domains and include all cookies that were sent in the original request to ensure that images with restricted view right can be compared. Starting in version 11.10.1 and prior to versions 14.10.15, 15.5.1, and 15.6, this allows an attacker to steal login and session cookies that allow impersonating the current user who views the diff. The attack can be triggered with an image that references the rendered diff, thus making it easy to trigger. Apart from stealing login cookies, this also allows server-side request forgery (the result of any successful request is returned in the image's source) and viewing protected content as once a resource is cached, it is returned for all users. As only successful requests are cached, the cache will be filled by the first user who is allowed to access the resource. This has been patched in XWiki 14.10.15, 15.5.1 and 15.6. The rendered diff now only downloads images from trusted domains. Further, cookies are only sent when the image's domain is the same the requested domain. The cache has been changed to be specific for each user. As a workaround, the image embedding feature can be disabled by deleting xwiki-platform-diff-xml-<version>.jar in WEB-INF/lib/.

Attack profile

How easy it is to exploit

Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges needed
Low
User interaction
Required

What an attacker can affect

Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

Exploit likelihood

0.71%Up 0.6 points since Nov 21, 2023
90%50%10%1%

What each source reports

CVE List Score used 9.1

XWiki Platform sends cookies to external images in rendered diff and is vulnerable to server side request forgery

XWiki Platform is a generic wiki platform. The rendered diff in XWiki embeds images to be able to compare the contents and not display a difference for an actually unchanged image. For this, XWiki requests all embedded images on the server side. These requests are also sent for images from other domains and include all cookies that were sent in the original request to ensure that images with restricted view right can be compared. Starting in version 11.10.1 and prior to versions 14.10.15, 15.5.1, and 15.6, this allows an attacker to steal login and session cookies that allow impersonating the current user who views the diff. The attack can be triggered with an image that references the rendered diff, thus making it easy to trigger. Apart from stealing login cookies, this also allows server-side request forgery (the result of any successful request is returned in the image's source) and viewing protected content as once a resource is cached, it is returned for all users. As only successful requests are cached, the cache will be filled by the first user who is allowed to access the resource. This has been patched in XWiki 14.10.15, 15.5.1 and 15.6. The rendered diff now only downloads images from trusted domains. Further, cookies are only sent when the image's domain is the same the requested domain. The cache has been changed to be specific for each user. As a workaround, the image embedding feature can be disabled by deleting xwiki-platform-diff-xml-<version>.jar in WEB-INF/lib/.

Record
CVE-2023-48240
CVSS 3.1
9.1 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness
CWE-201, CWE-281, CWE-918
Updated
2026-11-02
EUVDEUVD-2023-2911 9.1

XWiki Platform is a generic wiki platform. The rendered diff in XWiki embeds images to be able to compare the contents and not display a difference for an actually unchanged image. For this, XWiki requests all embedded images on the server side. These requests are also sent for images from other domains and include all cookies that were sent in the original request to ensure that images with restricted view right can be compared. Starting in version 11.10.1 and prior to versions 14.10.15, 15.5.1, and 15.6, this allows an attacker to steal login and session cookies that allow impersonating the current user who views the diff. The attack can be triggered with an image that references the rendered diff, thus making it easy to trigger. Apart from stealing login cookies, this also allows server-side request forgery (the result of any successful request is returned in the image's source) and viewing protected content as once a resource is cached, it is returned for all users. As only successful requests are cached, the cache will be filled by the first user who is allowed to access the resource. This has been patched in XWiki 14.10.15, 15.5.1 and 15.6. The rendered diff now only downloads images from trusted domains. Further, cookies are only sent when the image's domain is the same the requested domain. The cache has been changed to be specific for each user. As a workaround, the image embedding feature can be disabled by deleting xwiki-platform-diff-xml-<version>.jar in WEB-INF/lib/.

Record
EUVD-2023-2911
CVSS 3.1
9.1 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Updated
2026-11-03
GitHub AdvisoriesGHSA-7rfg-6273-f5wp 9.0

Cookies are sent to external images in rendered diff (and server side request forgery)

Impact

The rendered diff in XWiki embeds images to be able to compare the contents and not display a difference for an actually unchanged image. For this, XWiki requests all embedded images on the server side. These requests are also sent for images from other domains and include all cookies that were sent in the original request to ensure that images with restricted view right can be compared. This allows an attacker to steal login and session cookies that allow impersonating the current user who views the diff. The attack can be triggered with an image that references the rendered diff, thus making it easy to trigger.

More concretely, to reproduce, add 101 different images with references to the attacker's server. In any place add an image with a reference to /xwiki/bin/view/Image%20Cookie%20Test/?xpage=changes&rev1=1.1&rev2=2.1&include=renderedChanges where Image%20Cookie%20Test needs to be replaced by the path to the document with the images and the two revisions should match the revision before/after adding the images. Whenever a user views that image, the user's login cookies should be sent to the attacker's server. The 101 images are to circumvent the cache that has a default maximum size of 100 entries.

Apart from stealing login cookies, this also allows server-side request forgery (the result of any successful request is returned in the image's source) and viewing protected content as once a resource is cached, it is returned for all users. As only successful requests are cached, the cache will be filled by the first user who is allowed to access the resource.

Patches

This has been patched in XWiki 14.10.15, 15.5.1 and 15.6. The rendered diff now only downloads images from trusted domains. Further, cookies are only sent when the image's domain is the same the requested domain. The cache has been changed to be specific for each user.

Workarounds

As a workaround, the image embedding feature can be disabled by deleting xwiki-platform-diff-xml-<version>.jar in WEB-INF/lib/.

References

Record
GHSA-7rfg-6273-f5wp
CVSS 3.1
9.0 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness
CWE-201, CWE-918
Updated
2026-11-02
NVD 9.0

XWiki Platform is a generic wiki platform. The rendered diff in XWiki embeds images to be able to compare the contents and not display a difference for an actually unchanged image. For this, XWiki requests all embedded images on the server side. These requests are also sent for images from other domains and include all cookies that were sent in the original request to ensure that images with restricted view right can be compared. Starting in version 11.10.1 and prior to versions 14.10.15, 15.5.1, and 15.6, this allows an attacker to steal login and session cookies that allow impersonating the current user who views the diff. The attack can be triggered with an image that references the rendered diff, thus making it easy to trigger. Apart from stealing login cookies, this also allows server-side request forgery (the result of any successful request is returned in the image's source) and viewing protected content as once a resource is cached, it is returned for all users. As only successful requests are cached, the cache will be filled by the first user who is allowed to access the resource. This has been patched in XWiki 14.10.15, 15.5.1 and 15.6. The rendered diff now only downloads images from trusted domains. Further, cookies are only sent when the image's domain is the same the requested domain. The cache has been changed to be specific for each user. As a workaround, the image embedding feature can be disabled by deleting xwiki-platform-diff-xml-<version>.jar in WEB-INF/lib/.

Record
CVE-2023-48240
CVSS 3.1
9.0 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS 3.1
8.8 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness
CWE-201, CWE-281, CWE-918
Updated
2026-11-02
OSV 9.0

XWiki Platform sends cookies to external images in rendered diff and is vulnerable to server side request forgery

XWiki Platform is a generic wiki platform. The rendered diff in XWiki embeds images to be able to compare the contents and not display a difference for an actually unchanged image. For this, XWiki requests all embedded images on the server side. These requests are also sent for images from other domains and include all cookies that were sent in the original request to ensure that images with restricted view right can be compared. Starting in version 11.10.1 and prior to versions 14.10.15, 15.5.1, and 15.6, this allows an attacker to steal login and session cookies that allow impersonating the current user who views the diff. The attack can be triggered with an image that references the rendered diff, thus making it easy to trigger. Apart from stealing login cookies, this also allows server-side request forgery (the result of any successful request is returned in the image's source) and viewing protected content as once a resource is cached, it is returned for all users. As only successful requests are cached, the cache will be filled by the first user who is allowed to access the resource. This has been patched in XWiki 14.10.15, 15.5.1 and 15.6. The rendered diff now only downloads images from trusted domains. Further, cookies are only sent when the image's domain is the same the requested domain. The cache has been changed to be specific for each user. As a workaround, the image embedding feature can be disabled by deleting xwiki-platform-diff-xml-<version>.jar in WEB-INF/lib/.

Record
CVE-2023-48240
CVSS 3.1
9.0 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness
CWE-201, CWE-281, CWE-918
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVGHSA-7rfg-6273-f5wp 9.0

Cookies are sent to external images in rendered diff (and server side request forgery)

Impact

The rendered diff in XWiki embeds images to be able to compare the contents and not display a difference for an actually unchanged image. For this, XWiki requests all embedded images on the server side. These requests are also sent for images from other domains and include all cookies that were sent in the original request to ensure that images with restricted view right can be compared. This allows an attacker to steal login and session cookies that allow impersonating the current user who views the diff. The attack can be triggered with an image that references the rendered diff, thus making it easy to trigger.

More concretely, to reproduce, add 101 different images with references to the attacker's server. In any place add an image with a reference to /xwiki/bin/view/Image%20Cookie%20Test/?xpage=changes&rev1=1.1&rev2=2.1&include=renderedChanges where Image%20Cookie%20Test needs to be replaced by the path to the document with the images and the two revisions should match the revision before/after adding the images. Whenever a user views that image, the user's login cookies should be sent to the attacker's server. The 101 images are to circumvent the cache that has a default maximum size of 100 entries.

Apart from stealing login cookies, this also allows server-side request forgery (the result of any successful request is returned in the image's source) and viewing protected content as once a resource is cached, it is returned for all users. As only successful requests are cached, the cache will be filled by the first user who is allowed to access the resource.

Patches

This has been patched in XWiki 14.10.15, 15.5.1 and 15.6. The rendered diff now only downloads images from trusted domains. Further, cookies are only sent when the image's domain is the same the requested domain. The cache has been changed to be specific for each user.

Workarounds

As a workaround, the image embedding feature can be disabled by deleting xwiki-platform-diff-xml-<version>.jar in WEB-INF/lib/.

References

Record
GHSA-7rfg-6273-f5wp
CVSS 3.1
9.0 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness
CWE-201, CWE-918
Updated
2026-11-02

Affected products

Affected packages

Affected packages
PackageAffectedFixed
org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml
Maven
11.10.1 up to 14.10.15
14.10.15
org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml
Maven
15.0-rc-1 up to 15.5.1
15.5.1
org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml
Maven
15.6-rc-1 up to 15.6
15.6

History

History
RecordedChangedSources
aliases, publishedEUVD
first indexedCVE List, GitHub Advisories, NVD, OSV

Dates are when Every CVE recorded each change. Upstream dates may differ.

In short

CVE-2023-48240 is a critical vulnerability (CVSS 9.1) in Xwiki, published November 20, 2023. No source lists public exploit code. EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at 0.71%, the 53rd percentile. Fixed in org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml 14.10.15.

References

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