CVE-2022-23656 | Cross-site scripting vulnerability in Zulip Server

Zulip is an open source team chat app. The `main` development branch of Zulip Server from June 2021 and later is vulnerable to a cross-site scripting vulnerability on the recent topics page. An attacker could maliciously craft a full name for their account and send messages to a topic with several participants; a victim who then opens an overflow tooltip including this full name on the recent topics page could trigger execution of JavaScript code controlled by the attacker. Users running a Zulip server from the main branch should upgrade from main (2022-03-01 or later) again to deploy this fix.

Published: 2022-03-02 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2022-23656 is rated Low Risk (33.3/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.56%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2022-23656

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-07-01 0.55% 0.56% +0.01%
2 2026-06-15 0.27% 0.55% +0.28%
3 2025-03-30 0.27%

Full EPSS history (8 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2022-23656

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
4.6 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
2.1 2.5 [email protected]
5.4 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
2.3 2.7 [email protected]
3.5 2.0 LOW
AV:N/AC:M/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
Authentication (AU:S)
A single authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
6.8 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2022-23656

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2022-23656

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
zulip zulip_server >= 2021-06-03, < 2022-03-01 cpe:2.3:a:zulip:zulip_server:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2022-23656

cvelogic Threat Intelligence