CVE-2023-45725 | Apache CouchDB, IBM Cloudant: Privilege Escalation Using _design Documents

Design document functions which receive a user http request object may expose authorization or session cookie headers of the user who accesses the document. These design document functions are: *   list *   show *   rewrite *   update An attacker can leak the session component using an HTML-like output, insert the session as an external resource (such as an image), or store the credential in a _local document with an "update" function. For the attack to succeed the attacker has to be able to insert the design documents into the database, then manipulate a user to access a function from that design document. Workaround: Avoid using design documents from untrusted sources which may attempt to access or manipulate request object's headers

Published: 2023-12-13 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-45725 is rated Moderate Risk (46.6/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.23%). Core evidence: EPSS rose +1.06% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Mandatory action: 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-2023-45725

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% 1.23% +1.06%
2 2025-11-21 0.35% 0.17% -0.18%
3 2025-11-18 0.35%

Full EPSS history (13 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-45725

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.7 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/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: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: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.
2.1 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-45725

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-45725

vendor priority summary link
suse medium CVE-2023-45725 severity moderate: SUSE including 1 source package names (couchdb), 2 product×package rows across 2 product lines (SUSE OpenStack Cloud Crowbar 8, SUSE OpenStack Cloud Crowbar 9): Will Not Fix 2. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-45725/
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-45725 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (couchdb), 12 status rows across 12 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 8, ignored 2, needs-triage 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-45725

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-45725

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
apache couchdb <= 3.3.2 cpe:2.3:a:apache:couchdb:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-45725

cvelogic Threat Intelligence