GHSA-7rfg-6273-f5wp 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.
Cookies are sent to external images in rendered diff (and 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
GHSA-7rfg-6273-f5wp 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 377,333 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
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
| 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 GHSA-7rfg-6273-f5wp 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 GHSA-7rfg-6273-f5wp can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-7rfg-6273-f5wp. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-7rfg-6273-f5wp in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-7rfg-6273-f5wp across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.