How severe is CVE-2023-29528?

CVE-2023-29528 has a CVSS score of 9/10, rated CRITICAL. Immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2023-29528?

CVE-2023-29528 affects the following packages: org.xwiki.commons:xwiki-commons-xml (Maven). Ecosystems affected: Maven.

How do I fix CVE-2023-29528?

Update org.xwiki.commons:xwiki-commons-xml to 14.10 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-29528 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2023-29528 in my Maven dependencies?

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.

How do I mitigate CVE-2023-29528 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

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 does O3 Security protect against CVE-2023-29528?

O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2023-29528 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Is CVE-2023-29528 actively exploited in the wild?

Yes. There are 1 known exploit references for CVE-2023-29528, including 1 in-the-wild exploitation observed on GitHub and other sources. Treat this as actively exploitable and prioritize patching immediately. All exploit code should only be run in an isolated sandbox environment for research or authorized testing — never against production systems without explicit written authorization.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2023-29528?

CVE-2023-29528 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 1.3%, placing it in the 66th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

When was CVE-2023-29528 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2023-29528 was published on April 20, 2023 and was last updated on April 10, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

CVE-2023-29528: xwiki-commons-xml Cross-Site Scripting (Critica…

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

1.3%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk66th percentile-1.89%

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

1 pkg affected

☕org.xwiki.commons:xwiki-commons-xml

Real-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 and massively improved in version 14.6-rc-1, allowed the injection of arbitrary HTML code and thus cross-site scripting via invalid HTML comments. 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 14.10, HTML comments are now removed in restricted mode and a check has been introduced that ensures that comments don't start with >. There are no known workarounds apart from upgrading to a version including the fix.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
☕Maven	`org.xwiki.commons:xwiki-commons-xml`	≥ 4.2-milestone-1&&< 14.10	14.10

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
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 14.10 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-29528 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-2023-29528 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-2023-29528. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

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 and massively improved in version 14.6-rc-1, allowed the injection of arbitrary HTML code and thus cross-site scripting via invalid HTML comments. 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 conte

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2023-29528 in your dependencies?

O3 detects CVE-2023-29528 across Maven dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.

Scan my dependencies How O3 SCA works

CVE-2023-29528