CVE-2023-28154 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) vulnerability in webpack. A fix is available for webpack — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Cross-realm object access in Webpack 5
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.
- 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-2023-28154.
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-2023-28154 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 377,166 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.
webpacknpmDescription
Webpack 5 before 5.76.0 does not avoid cross-realm object access. ImportParserPlugin.js mishandles the magic comment feature. An attacker who controls a property of an untrusted object can obtain access to the real global object.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | webpack | ≥ 5.0.0&&< 5.76.0 | 5.76.0npm install webpack@5.76.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for webpack, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update webpack to 5.76.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-28154 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-2023-28154 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-28154. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| OpenShift-Pipelines-1.10-RHEL-8 | openshift-pipelines/pipelines-hub-ui-rhel8:v1.10.5-2 | RHBA-2023:4315 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | pcs-0:0.11.3-4.el9_1.3 | RHSA-2023:1591 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-28154 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-28154 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.