CVE-2023-6149 | Possible XXE vulnerability in Jenkins Plugin for Qualys Web Application Security

Qualys Jenkins Plugin for WAS prior to version and including 2.0.11 was identified to be affected by a security flaw, which was missing a permission check while performing a connectivity check to Qualys Cloud Services. This allowed any user with login access to configure or edit jobs to utilize the plugin and configure potential a rouge endpoint via which it was possible to control response for certain request which could be injected with XXE payloads leading to XXE while processing the response data

Published: 2024-01-09 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-6149 is rated Low Risk (34.5/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.16%). 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-2023-6149

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 2025-03-30 0.32% 0.16% -0.16%
2 2025-03-29 0.16% 0.32% +0.16%
3 2025-03-17 0.16%

Full EPSS history (5 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-6149

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]
6.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/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: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:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
2.8 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-6149

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2023-6149

GHSA-5gwh-r76w-934h · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: maven — Qualys Jenkins Plugin for WAS XML External Entity vulnerability

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-6149

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
qualys web_application_screening <= 2.0.11 cpe:2.3:a:qualys:web_application_screening:*:*:*:*:*:jenkins:*:*

References for CVE-2023-6149

cvelogic Threat Intelligence