CVE-2022-23494 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.4) Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in tinymce. A fix is available for tinymce — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Cross-site scripting vulnerability in TinyMCE alerts
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2022-23494 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,333 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
tinymcenpmDescription
Impact
A cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability was discovered in the alert and confirm dialogs when these dialogs were provided with malicious HTML content. This can occur in plugins that use the alert or confirm dialogs, such as in the image plugin, which presents these dialogs when certain errors occur. The vulnerability allowed arbitrary JavaScript execution when an alert presented in the TinyMCE UI for the current user.
Patches
This vulnerability has been patched in TinyMCE 5.10.7 and TinyMCE 6.3.1 by ensuring HTML sanitization was still performed after unwrapping invalid elements.
Fix
To avoid this vulnerability:
- Upgrade to TinyMCE 5.10.7 or higher for TinyMCE 5.x.
- Upgrade to TinyMCE 6.3.1 or higher for TinyMCE 6.x.
Workaround
To reduce the impact of this vulnerability:
- Ensure the the
images_upload_handlerreturns a valid value as per the images_upload_handler documentation.
References
- https://www.tiny.cloud/docs/release-notes/release-notes5107/#securityfixes
- https://www.tiny.cloud/docs/tinymce/6/6.3-release-notes/#security-fixes
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
- Email us at [email protected]
- Open an issue in the TinyMCE repo
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | tinymce | ≥ 6.0.0&&< 6.3.1 | 6.3.1npm install tinymce@6.3.1 |
| 📦npm | tinymce | all versions | 5.10.7npm install tinymce@5.10.7 |
| .NETNuGet | TinyMCE | ≥ 6.0.0&&< 6.3.1 | 6.3.1dotnet add package TinyMCE --version 6.3.1 |
| .NETNuGet | TinyMCE | all versions | 5.10.7dotnet add package TinyMCE --version 5.10.7 |
| 🐘Packagist | tinymce/tinymce | ≥ 6.0.0&&< 6.3.1 | 6.3.1composer require tinymce/tinymce:^6.3.1 |
| 🐘Packagist | tinymce/tinymce | all versions | 5.10.7composer require tinymce/tinymce:^5.10.7 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for tinymce, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update tinymce to 6.3.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-23494 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2022-23494 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2022-23494. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-23494 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2022-23494 across npm, NuGet, Packagist dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.