CVE-2023-25156 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-770 vulnerability in kiwitcms. A fix is available for kiwitcms — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Kiwi TCMS has no protection against brute-force attacks on login page
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2023-25156.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
kiwitcmsReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Kiwi TCMS, an open source test management system, does not impose rate limits in versions prior to 12.0. This makes it easier to attempt brute-force attacks against the login page. Users should upgrade to v12.0 or later to receive a patch. As a workaround, users may install and configure a rate-limiting proxy in front of Kiwi TCMS.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | kiwitcms | all versions | 12.0pip install --upgrade 'kiwitcms==12.0' |
Affected Products
kiwi tcmskiwitcmsDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for kiwitcms, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update kiwitcms to 12.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-25156 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-25156 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.