CVE-2023-40180 | Denial of service vulnerability in silverstripe-graphql via recursive queries

silverstripe-graphql is a package which serves Silverstripe data in GraphQL representations. An attacker could use a recursive graphql query to execute a Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDOS attack) against a website. This mostly affects websites with publicly exposed graphql schemas. If your Silverstripe CMS project does not expose a public facing graphql schema, a user account is required to trigger the DDOS attack. If your site is hosted behind a content delivery network (CDN), such as Imperva or CloudFlare, this may further mitigate the risk. This issue has been addressed in versions 3.8.2, 4.1.3, 4.2.5, 4.3.4, and 5.0.3. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

Published: 2023-10-16 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2023-40180 is rated Moderate Risk (54.3/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.60%). 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-2023-40180

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 2026-05-27 0.68% 0.60% -0.08%
2 2026-03-27 0.58% 0.68% +0.09%
3 2025-11-21 — 0.58% —

Full EPSS history (12 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-40180

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H 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:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 3.9 3.6 [email protected]
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H 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:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 3.9 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-40180

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2023-40180

GHSA-v23w-pppm-jh66 · Severity: high · Ecosystem: composer — Silverstripe GraphQL has DDOS Vulnerability due to lack of protection against recursive queries

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-40180

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
silverstripe graphql >= 3.0.0, < 3.8.2 cpe:2.3:a:silverstripe:graphql:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
silverstripe graphql >= 4.0.0, < 4.1.3 cpe:2.3:a:silverstripe:graphql:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
silverstripe graphql >= 4.2.0, < 4.2.5 cpe:2.3:a:silverstripe:graphql:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
silverstripe graphql >= 4.3.0, < 4.3.4 cpe:2.3:a:silverstripe:graphql:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
silverstripe graphql >= 5.0.0, < 5.0.3 cpe:2.3:a:silverstripe:graphql:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-40180

cvelogic Threat Intelligence