CVE-2023-3481 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.1) CWE-80 vulnerability in critters. A fix is available for critters — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Critters Cross-site Scripting Vulnerability
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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-2023-3481.
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-2023-3481 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 378,156 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, a proxy for how much of the ecosystem is exposed.
crittersnpmDescription
Impact
Critters version 0.0.17-0.0.19 have an issue when parsing the HTML which leads to a potential cross-site scripting (XSS) bug.
Patches
The bug has been fixed in v0.0.20.
Workarounds
Upgrading Critters version to >0.0.20 is the easiest fix. This is a non breaking version upgrade so we recommend all users to use v0.0.20.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | critters | ≥ 0.0.17&&< 0.0.20 | 0.0.20npm install critters@0.0.20 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for critters, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update critters to 0.0.20 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-3481 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-2023-3481 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-3481. 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-2023-3481 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-3481 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.