CVE-2023-27476 | XML External Entity (XXE) Injection in OWSLib

OWSLib is a Python package for client programming with Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web service interface standards, and their related content models. OWSLib's XML parser (which supports both `lxml` and `xml.etree`) does not disable entity resolution, and could lead to arbitrary file reads from an attacker-controlled XML payload. This affects all XML parsing in the codebase. This issue has been addressed in version 0.28.1. All users are advised to upgrade. The only known workaround is to patch the library manually. See `GHSA-8h9c-r582-mggc` for details.

Published: 2023-03-08 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2023-27476 is rated Moderate Risk (53.7/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.98%). Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

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-2023-27476

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 0.17% 0.98% +0.81%
2 2026-03-25 0.12% 0.17% +0.05%
3 2025-11-21 — 0.12% —

Full EPSS history (14 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-27476

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
8.2 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:L 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:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:L)
Might cause slowdowns, glitches, or partial disruption—not a full brick.
 3.9 4.2 [email protected]
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/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:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 3.9 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-27476

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2023-27476

GHSA-8h9c-r582-mggc · Severity: high · Ecosystem: pip — OWSLib vulnerable to XML External Entity (XXE) Injection

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-27476

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2023-27476 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (owslib), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2023-27476
suse high — https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-27476/
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-27476 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (owslib), 13 status rows across 13 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): needs-triage 7, ignored 6. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-27476

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-27476

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
osgeo owslib < 0.28.1 cpe:2.3:a:osgeo:owslib:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-27476

cvelogic Threat Intelligence