CVE-2023-25171 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 denial of service vulnerability on Password reset 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-2023-25171.
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-2023-25171 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 378,156 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
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
Impact
Previous versions of Kiwi TCMS do not impose rate limits which makes it easier to attempt denial-of-service attacks against the Password reset page. An attacker could potentially send a large number of emails if they know the email addresses of users in Kiwi TCMS. Additionally that may strain SMTP resources.
Patches
Users should upgrade to v12.0 or later.
Workarounds
Users may install and configure a rate-limiting proxy in front of Kiwi TCMS such as Nginx and/or configure rate limits on their email server when possible.
References
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | kiwitcms | all versions | 12.0pip install --upgrade 'kiwitcms==12.0' |
Detection & 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-2023-25171 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-2023-25171 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-25171. 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-2023-25171 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-25171 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.