CVE-2023-5588 is a low-severity (CVSS 2.6) Path Traversal vulnerability in pleroma. A fix is available for pleroma — see the affected versions and patch details below.
kphrx pleroma pack.ex Pleroma.Emoji.Pack path traversal
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-2023-5588.
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-2023-5588 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
pleromaReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Hex packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
A vulnerability was found in kphrx pleroma. It has been classified as problematic. This affects the function Pleroma.Emoji.Pack of the file lib/pleroma/emoji/pack.ex. The manipulation of the argument name leads to path traversal. The complexity of an attack is rather high. The exploitability is told to be difficult. This product does not use versioning. This is why information about affected and unaffected releases are unavailable. The patch is named 2c795094535537a8607cc0d3b7f076a609636f40. It is recommended to apply a patch to fix this issue. The associated identifier of this vulnerability is VDB-242187.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💧Hex | pleroma | all versions | 2.5.3mix deps.update pleroma |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for pleroma, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update pleroma to 2.5.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-5588 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-2023-5588 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-5588. 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-2023-5588 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-5588 across Hex dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.