CVE-2023-45818 | Cross-site Scripting vulnerability in TinyMCE undo/redo, getContent API, resetContent API, and Autosave plugin

TinyMCE is an open source rich text editor. A mutation cross-site scripting (mXSS) vulnerability was discovered in TinyMCE’s core undo and redo functionality. When a carefully-crafted HTML snippet passes the XSS sanitisation layer, it is manipulated as a string by internal trimming functions before being stored in the undo stack. If the HTML snippet is restored from the undo stack, the combination of the string manipulation and reparative parsing by either the browser's native [DOMParser API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/DOMParser) (TinyMCE 6) or the SaxParser API (TinyMCE 5) mutates the HTML maliciously, allowing an XSS payload to be executed. This vulnerability has been patched in TinyMCE 5.10.8 and TinyMCE 6.7.1 by ensuring HTML is trimmed using node-level manipulation instead of string manipulation. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

Published: 2023-10-19 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-45818 is rated Low Risk (39.4/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.62%). 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-2023-45818

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 1.28% 0.62% -0.66%
2 2026-03-04 0.66% 1.28% +0.62%
3 2026-03-01 0.66%

Full EPSS history (39 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-45818

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.1 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/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: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: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.
2.8 2.7 [email protected]
6.1 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/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: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: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.
2.8 2.7 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-45818

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2023-45818

GHSA-v65r-p3vv-jjfv · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: npm — TinyMCE mXSS vulnerability in undo/redo, getContent API, resetContent API, and Autosave plugin

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-45818

vendor priority summary link
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-45818 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (tinymce), 12 status rows across 12 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 7, needs-triage 4, ignored 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-45818

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-45818

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
tiny tinymce < 5.10.8 cpe:2.3:a:tiny:tinymce:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
tiny tinymce >= 6.0.0, < 6.7.1 cpe:2.3:a:tiny:tinymce:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-45818

cvelogic Threat Intelligence