CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2023-29209 — XWiki Commons are technical libraries common to several other top level XWiki projects

Critical CVSS 9.9

XWiki Commons are technical libraries common to several other top level XWiki projects. Any user with view rights on commonly accessible documents including the legacy notification activity macro can execute arbitrary Groovy, Python or Velocity code in XWiki leading to full access to the XWiki installation. The root cause is improper escaping of the macro parameters of the legacy notification activity macro. This macro is installed by default in XWiki. The vulnerability can be exploited via every wiki page that is editable including the user's profile, but also with just view rights using the HTMLConverter that is part of the CKEditor integration which is bundled with XWiki. The vulnerability has been patched in XWiki 13.10.11, 14.4.7 and 14.10.

Severity
Critical
CVSS
9.9 (3.1)
Published
2023-04-15
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
python/pypi
Weaknesses
CWE-95, CWE-94

Affected products

  • xwiki / xwiki

Showing 1 representative product identities from 3 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Command, code, expression, and template injection

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Check exposure

  • Trace untrusted values to process execution, interpreters, evaluators, template engines, dynamic imports, and administrative scripting features.
  • Determine whether the affected path is reachable across each trust boundary and which service account or host privilege it inherits.
  • Review configuration for optional execution features, unsafe compatibility modes, and shell invocation.

Remediate safely

  • Replace string-built commands or evaluated code with fixed operations and structured argument APIs that do not invoke a shell.
  • Use strict allowlists for operation identifiers and reject unexpected input before it reaches any interpreter.
  • Update the affected component and add inert regression tests covering metacharacters, encoding variants, and alternate request paths.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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