CVE-2023-31133 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Information Exposure vulnerability in ghost. EPSS puts its 30-day exploitation probability at 45.7% (99th percentile). A fix is available for ghost — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Ghost vulnerable to disclosure of private API fields
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-2023-31133.
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-2023-31133 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 378,567 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 10–50% 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.
ghostnpmDescription
Impact
Due to a lack of validation when filtering on the public API endpoints, it is possible to reveal private fields via a brute force attack.
Ghost(Pro) has already been patched. We can find no evidence that the issue was exploited on Ghost(Pro) prior to the patch being added.
Self-hosters are impacted if running Ghost a version below v5.46.1. Immediate action should be taken to secure your site - see patches and workarounds below.
Patches
v5.46.1 contains a fix for this issue.
Workarounds
Add a block for requests to /ghost/api/content/* where the filter query parameter contains password or email.
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
- Email us at [email protected]
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | ghost | all versions | 5.46.1npm install ghost@5.46.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for ghost, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update ghost to 5.46.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-31133 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-2023-31133 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-31133. 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-2023-31133 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-31133 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.