CVE-2023-29201
CRITICALorg.xwiki.commons:xwiki-commons-xml Cross-site Scripting vulnerability
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.
Blast Radius
org.xwiki.commons:xwiki-commons-xmlReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
XWiki Commons are technical libraries common to several other top level XWiki projects. The "restricted" mode of the HTML cleaner in XWiki, introduced in version 4.2-milestone-1, only escaped <script> and <style>-tags but neither attributes that can be used to inject scripts nor other dangerous HTML tags like <iframe>. As a consequence, any code relying on this "restricted" mode for security is vulnerable to JavaScript injection ("cross-site scripting"/XSS). When a privileged user with programming rights visits such a comment in XWiki, the malicious JavaScript code is executed in the context of the user session. This allows server-side code execution with programming rights, impacting the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the XWiki instance. This problem has been patched in XWiki 14.6 RC1 with the introduction of a filter with allowed HTML elements and attributes that is enabled in restricted mode. There are no known workarounds apart from upgrading to a version including the fix.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.xwiki.commons:xwiki-commons-xml | ≥ 4.2-milestone-1&&< 14.6-rc-1 | 14.6-rc-1 |
Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
XWiki Commons are technical libraries common to several other top level …
XWiki Commons are technical libraries common to several other top level …
XWiki Commons are technical libraries common to several other top level …
XWiki Commons are technical libraries common to several other top level …
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.xwiki.commons:xwiki-commons-xml. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update org.xwiki.commons:xwiki-commons-xml to 14.6-rc-1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-29201 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 pinpoints whether CVE-2023-29201 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2023-29201. 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-2023-29201 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2023-29201 across Maven dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.