CVE-2023-45815 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.4) Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in archivebox. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for archivebox — see the affected versions and patch details below.
ArchiveBox: Viewing wget extractor output while logged in as an admin allows archived JS to execute in the admins context
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2023-45815.
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-2023-45815 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 376,715 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
archiveboxReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
ArchiveBox is an open source self-hosted web archiving system. Any users who are using the wget extractor and view the content it outputs. The impact is potentially severe if you are logged in to the ArchiveBox admin site in the same browser session and view an archived malicious page designed to target your ArchiveBox instance. Malicious Javascript could potentially act using your logged-in admin credentials and add/remove/modify snapshots, add/remove/modify ArchiveBox users, and generally do anything an admin user could do. The impact is less severe for non-logged-in users, as malicious Javascript cannot modify any archives, but it can still read all the other archived content by fetching the snapshot index and iterating through it. Because all of ArchiveBox's archived content is served from the same host and port as the admin panel, when archived pages are viewed the JS executes in the same context as all the other archived pages (and the admin panel), defeating most of the browser's usual CORS/CSRF security protections and leading to this issue. Version 0.9.0 contains a patch. As a mitigation for this issue would be to disable the wget extractor by setting archivebox config --set SAVE_WGET=False, ensure you are always logged out, or serve only a static HTML version of your archive.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | archivebox | all versions | 0.9.0pip install --upgrade 'archivebox==0.9.0' |
Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for archivebox, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update archivebox to 0.9.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-45815 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-2023-45815 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-45815. 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-2023-45815 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-45815 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.