Summary
Workarounds
Disable the risky extractors by setting archivebox config --set SAVE_WGET=False SAVE_DOM=False, ensure you are always logged out, or serve only a static HTML version of your archive.
References
Impact
Any users who are using the wget or dom extractors and view the content they output.
The impact is potentially severe if you are logged in to the ArchiveBox admin site in the same browser session and view an archived malicious page designed to target your ArchiveBox instance. Malicious JS could potentially act using your logged-in admin credentials and add/remove/modify snapshots, add/remove/modify ArchiveBox users, and generally do anything an admin user could do.
The impact is less severe for non-logged-in users, as malicious JS cannot modify any archives, but it can still read all the other archived content by fetching the snapshot index and iterating through it.
Because all of ArchiveBox's archived content is served from the same host and port as the admin panel, when archived pages are viewed the JS executes in the same context as all the other archived pages (and the admin panel), defeating most of the browser's usual CORS/CSRF security protections and leading to this issue.
Untrusted input is rendered as active markup in a victim's browser, which can run script in their session. Typical impact: session or credential theft, and actions taken as the user.
CVE-2023-45815 has a CVSS score of 6.4 (High). The vector is network-reachable, low 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. No fixed version is listed yet, so configuration controls and monitoring matter more in the interim.
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.
Remediation advice
Follow here for progress on mitigating this issue: https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/issues/239
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2023-45815? CVE-2023-45815 is a high-severity cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in archivebox (pip), affecting versions <= 0.6.2. No fixed version is listed yet. Untrusted input is rendered as active markup in a victim's browser, which can run script in their session.
- How severe is CVE-2023-45815? CVE-2023-45815 has a CVSS score of 6.4 (High). 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 versions of archivebox are affected by CVE-2023-45815? archivebox (pip) versions <= 0.6.2 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2023-45815? No fixed version is listed for CVE-2023-45815 yet. Monitor the advisory for updates and apply mitigations in the interim.
- Is CVE-2023-45815 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2023-45815 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-2023-45815 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-2023-45815? No fixed version is listed yet. In the interim: Validate and encode untrusted input before rendering it as HTML. Applying a Content Security Policy reduces the impact if encoding is bypassed.