CVE-2023-50723 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.9) Code Injection vulnerability in org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-administration-ui. A fix is available for org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-administration-ui — see the affected versions and patch details below.
XWiki Platform remote code execution/programming rights with configuration section from any user account
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- 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-2023-50723.
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-2023-50723 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 377,636 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-administration-ui☕org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-administration-ui☕org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-administration-uiReal-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
Anyone who can edit an arbitrary wiki page in an XWiki installation can gain programming right through several cases of missing escaping in the code for displaying sections in the administration interface. This impacts the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the whole XWiki installation. Normally, all users are allowed to edit their own user profile so this should be exploitable by all users of the XWiki instance.
The easiest way to reproduce this is to edit any document with the object editor and add an object of type XWiki.ConfigurableClass ("Custom configurable sections"). Set "Display in section" and "Display in Category" to "other", set scope to "Wiki and all spaces" and "Heading" to {{async}}{{groovy}}services.logging.getLogger("attacker").error("Attack from Heading succeeded!"); println("Hello from Groovy!"){{/groovy}}{{/async}}. Click "Save". Open <xwiki-host>/xwiki/bin/view/Main/?sheet=XWiki.AdminSheet&viewer=content&editor=globaladmin§ion=other where <xwiki-host> is the URL of your XWiki installation. If this displays just "Hello from Groovy!" in a heading and generates an error message with content "Attack from Heading succeeded!" in XWiki's log, the attack succeeded. Similar attacks are also possible by creating this kind of object on a document with a specially crafted name, see the referenced Jira issues for more reproduction steps.
Patches
This has been fixed in XWiki 14.10.15, 15.5.2 and 15.7RC1
Workarounds
It is possible to manually apply the fixes for the vulnerability by editing two pages in the wiki. This patch needs to be applied to the page XWiki.ConfigurableClassMacros. Further, the following patches need to be applied to the page XWiki.ConfigurableClass:
- https://github.com/xwiki/xwiki-platform/commit/749f6aee1bfbcf191c3734ea0aa9eba3aa63240e#diff-bf419a99140f3c12fd78ea30f855b63cfb74c1c976ff4436898266d9b37ad3ce
- https://github.com/xwiki/xwiki-platform/commit/1157c1ecea395aac7f64cd8a6f484b1225416dc7#diff-bf419a99140f3c12fd78ea30f855b63cfb74c1c976ff4436898266d9b37ad3ce
- https://github.com/xwiki/xwiki-platform/commit/0f367aaae4e0696f61cf5a67a75edd27d1d16db6
Note that also the page XWiki.ConfigurableClass needs to be changed to xwiki/2.1 syntax for the escaping to work properly but the security vulnerability is fixed also without changing the syntax.
References
- https://github.com/xwiki/xwiki-platform/commit/bd82be936c21b65dee367d558e3050b9b6995713
- https://github.com/xwiki/xwiki-platform/commit/749f6aee1bfbcf191c3734ea0aa9eba3aa63240e
- https://github.com/xwiki/xwiki-platform/commit/1157c1ecea395aac7f64cd8a6f484b1225416dc7
- https://github.com/xwiki/xwiki-platform/commit/0f367aaae4e0696f61cf5a67a75edd27d1d16db6
- https://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-21122
- https://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-21121
- https://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-21194
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-administration-ui | ≥ 2.3&&< 14.10.15 | 14.10.15org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-administration-ui:14.10.15 |
| ☕Maven | org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-administration-ui | ≥ 15.0-rc-1&&< 15.5.2 | 15.5.2org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-administration-ui:15.5.2 |
| ☕Maven | org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-administration-ui | ≥ 15.6-rc-1&&< 15.7-rc-1 | 15.7-rc-1org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-administration-ui:15.7-rc-1 |
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-administration-ui, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-administration-ui to 14.10.15 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-50723 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-2023-50723 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-50723. 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-2023-50723 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-50723 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.