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
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-2023-48240 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 377,166 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
org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml☕org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml☕org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xmlReal-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 Platform is a generic wiki platform. 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. Starting in version 11.10.1 and prior to versions 14.10.15, 15.5.1, and 15.6, 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. 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. 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. As a workaround, the image embedding feature can be disabled by deleting xwiki-platform-diff-xml-<version>.jar in WEB-INF/lib/.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml | ≥ 11.10.1&&< 14.10.15 | 14.10.15org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml:14.10.15 |
| ☕Maven | org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml | ≥ 15.0-rc-1&&< 15.5.1 | 15.5.1org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml:15.5.1 |
| ☕Maven | org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml | ≥ 15.6-rc-1&&< 15.6 | 15.6org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-diff-xml:15.6 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
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
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-2023-48240 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-48240. 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-2023-48240 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-48240 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.