XWiki vulnerable to Code Injection in template provider administration

Description

Impact

Any user with edit rights on any document (e.g., the own user profile) can execute code with programming rights, leading to remote code execution by following these steps:

  1. Set the title of any document you can edit (can be the user profile) to
    {{async async="true" cached="false" context="doc.reference"}}{{groovy}}println("Hello " + "from groovy!"){{/groovy}}{{/async}}
  1. Use the object editor to add an object of type XWiki.TemplateProviderClass (named "Template Provider Class") to that document.
  2. Go to another document you can view (can be the home page) and append ?sheet=XWiki.AdminTemplatesSheet to the URL.

When the attack is successful, a template with name "Hello from groovy!" is displayed in the list while on fixed systems, the full title should be displayed.

Patches

This vulnerability has been patched in XWiki 13.10.11, 14.4.8, 14.10.1 and 15.0 RC1.

Workarounds

The vulnerability can be fixed by patching the code in the affected XWiki document as shown in the patch.

References

  • https://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-20268
  • https://github.com/xwiki/xwiki-platform/commit/7bf7094f8ffac095f5d66809af7554c9cc44de09

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
* Open an issue in Jira XWiki.org
* Email us at Security Mailing List

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
critical
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Open repository advisory ↗
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2023-04-20 21:46:57 UTC
Updated
2023-11-04 05:06:03 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2023-04-20 21:46:57 UTC
NVD published
2023-04-18

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
3.35% 87.03%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
10.0 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/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: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:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.

Identifiers

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-74 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component ('Injection')

Affected packages (5)

Vulnerable version ranges and first patched releases as published by GitHub.

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
maven org.xwiki.platform.applications:xwiki-application-administration >= 1.35, <= 1.49
maven org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-administration >= 3.1-milestone-1, < 4.2-milestone-1
maven org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-administration-ui >= 4.2-milestone-1, < 13.10.11 13.10.11
maven org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-administration-ui >= 14.0-rc-1, < 14.4.8 14.4.8
maven org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-administration-ui >= 14.5, < 14.10.1 14.10.1

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence