How severe is CVE-2023-48240?

CVE-2023-48240 has a CVSS score of 9/10, rated CRITICAL. Immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2023-48240?

CVE-2023-48240 affects the following packages: org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml (Maven), org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml (Maven), org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml (Maven). Ecosystems affected: Maven.

How do I fix CVE-2023-48240?

Update org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml to 14.10.15 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-48240 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2023-48240 in my Maven dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

How do I mitigate CVE-2023-48240 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

Restrict outbound requests from the affected component to an allowlist of hosts, block access to link-local and internal address ranges at the network layer, and require authentication on internal services so a forged request cannot reach them unauthenticated.

Is CVE-2023-48240 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for CVE-2023-48240 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2023-48240?

CVE-2023-48240 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 0.7%, placing it in the 54th 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.

What type of vulnerability is CVE-2023-48240?

CVE-2023-48240 is classified as CWE-201 (CWE-201), CWE-281 (CWE-281), Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) (CWE-918). These weakness types describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation. This is a high-impact weakness class that often enables remote code execution or data exposure.

When was CVE-2023-48240 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2023-48240 was published on November 20, 2023 and was last updated on October 28, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

☕

☕ Maven

Not in CISA KEV

CRITICAL severity

CVE-2023-48240 — xwiki-platform-diff-xml

CRITICALFix: xwiki/xwiki-platform@bff0203

CVE-2023-48240 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9) CWE-201 vulnerability in org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml. A fix is available for org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml — see the affected versions and patch details below.

XWiki Platform sends cookies to external images in rendered diff and is vulnerable to server side request forgery

Also known asGHSA-7rfg-6273-f5wp

Published

Nov 20, 2023

Updated

Oct 28, 2026

Affected

3 pkgs

Patched

3 / 3

Exploits

None indexed

Exploitation data as of Nov 4, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

0.7%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk0.00%

Lower risk than most CVEs54th percentile — riskier than 54% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

Where this sits among everything scored

Real-World Exposure

3 pkgs affected

☕org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml☕org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml☕org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-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

Impact

The rendered diff in XWiki embeds images to be able to compare the contents and not display a difference for an actually unchanged image. For this, XWiki requests all embedded images on the server side. These requests are also sent for images from other domains and include all cookies that were sent in the original request to ensure that images with restricted view right can be compared. This allows an attacker to steal login and session cookies that allow impersonating the current user who views the diff. The attack can be triggered with an image that references the rendered diff, thus making it easy to trigger.

More concretely, to reproduce, add 101 different images with references to the attacker's server. In any place add an image with a reference to /xwiki/bin/view/Image%20Cookie%20Test/?xpage=changes&rev1=1.1&rev2=2.1&include=renderedChanges where Image%20Cookie%20Test needs to be replaced by the path to the document with the images and the two revisions should match the revision before/after adding the images. Whenever a user views that image, the user's login cookies should be sent to the attacker's server. The 101 images are to circumvent the cache that has a default maximum size of 100 entries.

Apart from stealing login cookies, this also allows server-side request forgery (the result of any successful request is returned in the image's source) and viewing protected content as once a resource is cached, it is returned for all users. As only successful requests are cached, the cache will be filled by the first user who is allowed to access the resource.

Patches

This has been patched in XWiki 14.10.15, 15.5.1 and 15.6. The rendered diff now only downloads images from trusted domains. Further, cookies are only sent when the image's domain is the same the requested domain. The cache has been changed to be specific for each user.

Workarounds

As a workaround, the image embedding feature can be disabled by deleting xwiki-platform-diff-xml-<version>.jar in WEB-INF/lib/.

References

Affected Packages

3 total 3 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
☕Maven	`org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml`	≥ 11.10.1&&< 14.10.15	14.10.15`org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml:14.10.15`
☕Maven	`org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml`	≥ 15.0-rc-1&&< 15.5.1	15.5.1`org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml:15.5.1`
☕Maven	`org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml`	≥ 15.6-rc-1&&< 15.6	15.6`org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml:15.6`

Affected Products

1 product · 3 configurations

Application

xwikixwiki

≥ 15.0 && < 15.5.1

1 version

15.6

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.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml to 14.10.15 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-48240 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Restrict outbound requests from the affected component to an allowlist of hosts, block access to link-local and internal address ranges at the network layer, and require authentication on internal services so a forged request cannot reach them unauthenticated.

Frequently Asked Questions

### Impact The rendered diff in XWiki embeds images to be able to compare the contents and not display a difference for an actually unchanged image. For this, XWiki requests all embedded images on the server side. These requests are also sent for images from other domains and include all cookies that were sent in the original request to ensure that images with restricted view right can be compared. This allows an attacker to steal login and session cookies that allow impersonating the current user who views the diff. The attack can be triggered with an image that references the rendered diff,