CVE-2023-27474 is a high-severity (CVSS 8) Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in directus. A fix is available for directus — see the affected versions and patch details below.
HTML Injection in Password Reset email to custom Reset URL in directus
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- 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-2023-27474.
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
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.
directusnpmDescription
Directus is a real-time API and App dashboard for managing SQL database content. Instances relying on an allow-listed reset URL are vulnerable to an HTML injection attack through the use of query parameters in the reset URL. An attacker could exploit this to email users urls to the servers domain but which may contain malicious code. The problem has been resolved and released under version 9.23.0. People relying on a custom password reset URL should upgrade to 9.23.0 or later, or remove the custom reset url from the configured allow list. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade may disable the custom reset URL allow list as a workaround.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | directus | all versions | 9.23.0npm install directus@9.23.0 |
Affected Products
directusrangerstudioDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for directus, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update directus to 9.23.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-27474 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Escape or sanitise the affected output on the server side rather than relying on client-side filtering, and add a Content-Security-Policy that blocks inline script execution so injected markup cannot run even if it reaches the page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-27474 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.