Summary
XWiki Platform vulnerable to cross-site request forgery (CSRF) via the REST API
Workarounds
It is possible to check for the Origin header in a reverse proxy to protect the REST endpoint from CSRF attacks, see the Jira issue for an example configuration.
References
Impact
The REST API allows executing all actions via POST requests and accepts text/plain, multipart/form-data or application/www-form-urlencoded as content types which can be sent via regular HTML forms, thus allowing cross-site request forgery. With the interaction of a user with programming rights, this allows remote code execution through script macros and thus impacts the integrity, availability and confidentiality of the whole XWiki installation.
For regular cookie-based authentication, the vulnerability is mitigated by SameSite cookie restrictions but as of March 2023, these are not enabled by default in Firefox and Safari.
A victim's authenticated browser session is used to submit forged requests to an application that cannot distinguish them from legitimate ones. Typical impact: state-changing actions performed as the victim without their consent.
CVE-2023-37277 has a CVSS score of 9.6 (Critical). The vector is network-reachable, no privileges required, and user interaction required. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. A fixed version is available (14.10.8, 15.2); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.
Affected versions
Security releases
Kodem intelligence
Severity tells you how bad this could be in the worst case. It does not tell you whether you are exposed. Exploitability and impact are functions of runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A vulnerable package can sit in your dependency tree and never run.
Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter. Kodem's runtime-powered SCA identifies whether this CVE is reachable in your applications.
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The vulnerability has been patched in XWiki 14.10.8 and 15.2 by requiring a CSRF token header for certain request types that are susceptible to CSRF attacks.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2023-37277? CVE-2023-37277 is a critical-severity cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-rest-server (maven), affecting versions >= 1.8, < 14.10.8. It is fixed in 14.10.8, 15.2. A victim's authenticated browser session is used to submit forged requests to an application that cannot distinguish them from legitimate ones.
- How severe is CVE-2023-37277? CVE-2023-37277 has a CVSS score of 9.6 (Critical). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
- Which packages are affected by CVE-2023-37277?
org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-rest-server(maven) (versions >= 1.8, < 14.10.8)com.xpn.xwiki.platform:xwiki-core-rest-server(maven) (versions >= 1.8, < 14.10.8)com.xpn.xwiki.platform:xwiki-rest(maven) (versions >= 1.8, < 14.10.8)
- Is there a fix for CVE-2023-37277? Yes. CVE-2023-37277 is fixed in 14.10.8, 15.2. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2023-37277 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2023-37277 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
- What actually determines whether CVE-2023-37277 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
- How do I fix CVE-2023-37277?
- Upgrade
org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-rest-serverto 14.10.8 or later - Upgrade
com.xpn.xwiki.platform:xwiki-core-rest-serverto 14.10.8 or later - Upgrade
com.xpn.xwiki.platform:xwiki-restto 14.10.8 or later - Upgrade
org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-rest-serverto 15.2 or later
- Upgrade