CVE-2023-22735 | User uploads proxied from S3 lack `Content-Security-Policy` headers, may be served with `Content-Disposition: inline` in zulip

Zulip is an open-source team collaboration tool. In versions of zulip prior to commit `2f6c5a8` but after commit `04cf68b` users could upload files with arbitrary `Content-Type` which would be served from the Zulip hostname with `Content-Disposition: inline` and no `Content-Security-Policy` header, allowing them to trick other users into executing arbitrary Javascript in the context of the Zulip application. Among other things, this enables session theft. Only deployments which use the S3 storage (not the local-disk storage) are affected, and only deployments which deployed commit 04cf68b45ebb5c03247a0d6453e35ffc175d55da, which has only been in `main`, not any numbered release. Users affected should upgrade from main again to deploy this fix. Switching from S3 storage to the local-disk storage would nominally mitigate this, but is likely more involved than upgrading to the latest `main` which addresses the issue.

Published: 2023-02-07 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-22735 is rated Low Risk (31.6/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.52%). 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-2023-22735

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 2026-06-15 0.30% 0.52% +0.22%
2 2026-02-17 0.44% 0.30% -0.14%
3 2026-02-08 0.44%

Full EPSS history (7 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-22735

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
4.4 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/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:H)
Even with access, the exploit needs extra luck, timing, or a fussy environment to actually work.
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.
1.3 2.7 [email protected]
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]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-22735

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-22735

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
zulip zulip_server 2023-01-09 cpe:2.3:a:zulip:zulip_server:2023-01-09:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-22735

cvelogic Threat Intelligence