GHSA-xm43-3m56-w3wf is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) CWE-472 vulnerability in ghost. A fix is available for ghost — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Ghost: Paid gift memberships obtainable at minimal cost via the donations feature
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- 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 GHSA-xm43-3m56-w3wf.
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-xm43-3m56-w3wf 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 376,715 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
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
ghostnpmDescription
Impact
A vulnerability in Ghost's public donation checkout flow allowed an unauthenticated attacker to obtain full paid gift memberships for a minimal payment. No customer or member data was exposed, and the issue could not be used to steal money from a site or its members.
Vulnerable versions
This vulnerability is present in Ghost from v6.27.0 up to v6.43.1.
Patches
v6.44.0 contains a fix for this issue.
How to update
For self-hosters using Docker, find Docker’s official Ghost image on Docker Hub and follow the documentation on updating a Docker-based Ghost instance.
For self-hosters using Ghost-CLI, see the documentation for updating Ghost to the latest version.
Workarounds
If upgrading immediately is not possible, you can remove the vulnerable checkout path by disabling the donations feature in Ghost Admin under Settings → Membership → Tips & donations until the upgrade is applied.
References
Ghost thanks sane100400 and p4p3r for disclosing this vulnerability responsibly.
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, email Ghost at [email protected].
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | ghost | ≥ 6.27.0&&< 6.44.0 | 6.44.0npm install ghost@6.44.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for ghost, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update ghost to 6.44.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-xm43-3m56-w3wf 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-xm43-3m56-w3wf can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-xm43-3m56-w3wf. 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-xm43-3m56-w3wf in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-xm43-3m56-w3wf across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.