CVE-2023-36479 | Jetty vulnerable to errant command quoting in CGI Servlet

Exp

Eclipse Jetty Canonical Repository is the canonical repository for the Jetty project. Users of the CgiServlet with a very specific command structure may have the wrong command executed. If a user sends a request to a org.eclipse.jetty.servlets.CGI Servlet for a binary with a space in its name, the servlet will escape the command by wrapping it in quotation marks. This wrapped command, plus an optional command prefix, will then be executed through a call to Runtime.exec. If the original binary name provided by the user contains a quotation mark followed by a space, the resulting command line will contain multiple tokens instead of one. This issue was patched in version 9.4.52, 10.0.16, 11.0.16 and 12.0.0-beta2.

Published: 2023-09-15 Last update: 2025-05-27 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Analyzed，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2023-36479 is rated Exploit Available (57.6/100): CVSS Low severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.38%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

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

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2023-36479

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2023-36479

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 2026-03-04 0.79% 1.38% +0.59%
2 2026-03-01 1.38% 0.79% -0.59%
3 2026-02-04 — 1.38% —

Full EPSS history (28 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-36479

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
3.5 3.1 LOW
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/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:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
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.
 1.8 1.4 [email protected]
3.1 3.1 LOW
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/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: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:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
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.
 1.6 1.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-36479

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2023-36479

GHSA-3gh6-v5v9-6v9j · Severity: low · Ecosystem: maven — Jetty vulnerable to errant command quoting in CGI Servlet

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-36479

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2023-36479 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (jetty9), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2023-36479
redhat low — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-36479
suse low CVE-2023-36479 severity low: SUSE including 58 source package names (jetty-annotations-9.4.53-1.1, jetty-annotations-9.4.53-150200.3.22.1, …), 234 product×package rows across 21 product lines (Image server-image, SUSE Enterprise Storage 7.1, … (21 product lines)): Fixed 234. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-36479/
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-36479 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (jetty), 12 status rows across 12 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 8, needs-triage 3, ignored 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-36479

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-36479

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
eclipse jetty >= 9.0.0, < 9.4.52 cpe:2.3:a:eclipse:jetty:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
eclipse jetty >= 10.0.0, < 10.0.16 cpe:2.3:a:eclipse:jetty:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
eclipse jetty >= 11.0.0, < 11.0.16 cpe:2.3:a:eclipse:jetty:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
eclipse jetty 12.0.0 cpe:2.3:a:eclipse:jetty:12.0.0:alpha1:*:*:*:*:*:*
eclipse jetty 12.0.0 cpe:2.3:a:eclipse:jetty:12.0.0:alpha2:*:*:*:*:*:*
eclipse jetty 12.0.0 cpe:2.3:a:eclipse:jetty:12.0.0:alpha3:*:*:*:*:*:*
eclipse jetty 12.0.0 cpe:2.3:a:eclipse:jetty:12.0.0:beta0:*:*:*:*:*:*
eclipse jetty 12.0.0 cpe:2.3:a:eclipse:jetty:12.0.0:beta1:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 10.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 11.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:11.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 12.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:12.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-36479

cvelogic Threat Intelligence