CVE-2024-47879 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.6) Code Injection vulnerability in org.openrefine:main. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for org.openrefine:main — see the affected versions and patch details below.
OpenRefine's PreviewExpressionCommand, which is eval, lacks protection against cross-site request forgery (CSRF)
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-2024-47879.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
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
org.openrefine:mainReal-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
Summary
Lack of CSRF protection on the preview-expression command means that visiting a malicious website could cause an attacker-controlled expression to be executed. The expression can contain arbitrary Clojure or Python code.
The attacker must know a valid project ID of a project that contains at least one row.
Details
The com.google.refine.commands.expr.PreviewExpressionCommand class contains the following comment:
/**
* The command uses POST but does not actually modify any state so it does not require CSRF.
*/
However, this appears to be false (or no longer true). The expression being previewed (executed) can be written in GREL, Python, or Clojure. Since there are no restrictions on what code can be executed, the expression can do anything the user running OpenRefine can do. For instance, the following expressions start a calculator:
clojure:(.exec (Runtime/getRuntime) "gnome-calculator")
jython:import os;os.system("gnome-calculator")
The lack of restrictions on expressions is arguably not a problem if the user is typing their own expressions into OpenRefine: they could have just as well typed them into Clojure or Python directly. However, since the preview-expression command does not check for a CSRF token, the expression can actually come from a HTML form submitted by a different origin, including arbitrary websites.
Issue #2164 suggested adding CSRF protection to all endpoints, but this endpoint was skipped (and the above comment added) in the associated PR #2182.
PoC
An example "malicious" page is at https://wandernauta.nl/or/ (of course, actual malicious pages would not wait for the victim to press the submit button).
The following curl command (substituting the project ID) also demonstrates the issue:
curl -d project=123456789 -d cellIndex=1 -d rowIndices='[0]' -d 'expression=clojure:(.exec (Runtime/getRuntime) "gnome-calculator")' http://localhost:3333/command/core/preview-expression/
Impact
CSRF into remote code execution, provided the attacker knows at least one project ID in the victim's workspace and can convince the victim to open a malicious webpage.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.openrefine:main | all versions | 3.8.3org.openrefine:main:3.8.3 |
Affected Products
openrefineopenrefineResearch 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 org.openrefine:main, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.openrefine:main to 3.8.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-47879 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-47879 in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.