CVE-2023-41266VulnerabilityPublished 29 Aug 2023Updated 30 Oct 2025

CVE-2023-41266: Qlik Sense · n/a

Affects Qlik SenseSource CVE Database V5

Exploited in the wild · used in ransomware campaigns · KEV due 28 Dec 2023 · public detection template (Nuclei) · 84% EPSS : apply the vendor's fix or mitigations to Qlik Sense now.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 08:30 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

8.2High

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

KEV deadline: 28 Dec 2023 US federal agencies must patch by this date; a sensible deadline for everyone else.
Ransomware: Used in ransomware campaigns
EPSS: 84.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 99% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AC:L/AV:N/A:N/C:H/I:L/PR:N/S:U/UI:N

Attack Complexity: Low
Attack Vector: Network
Availability: None
Confidentiality: High
Integrity: Low
Privileges Required: None
Scope: Unchanged
User Interaction: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.
Confidentiality: High: There is total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the impacted component being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact.
Integrity: Low: Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over the consequence of a modification, or the amount of modification is limited. The data modification does not have a direct, serious impact on the impacted component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

t = 0 is the CVE’s publication on cve.org

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 29 Aug 2023
Detectable: evidence found.
nuclei template: Qlik Sense Enterprise - Path Traversal
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: evidence found.
Listed in CISA KEV 100 days after disclosure
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

CVE ID reserved
by MITRE Corporation
25 Aug 2023, 4 days before disclosure
CVE published
on cve.org
29 Aug 2023, t = 0
Added to CISA KEV (opens in a new tab)
exploitation confirmed · ransomware use known
7 Dec 2023, 100 days after disclosure
KEV remediation due
US federal deadline
28 Dec 2023, 121 days after disclosure

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), CISA KEV (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Apply remediations or mitigations per vendor instructions or discontinue use of the product if remediation or mitigations are unavailable.

Description

A path traversal vulnerability found in Qlik Sense Enterprise for Windows for versions May 2023 Patch 3 and earlier, February 2023 Patch 7 and earlier, November 2022 Patch 10 and earlier, and August 2022 Patch 12 and earlier allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to generate an anonymous session. This allows them to transmit HTTP requests to unauthorized endpoints. This is fixed in August 2023 IR, May 2023 Patch 4, February 2023 Patch 8, November 2022 Patch 11, and August 2022 Patch 13.

Impact

For European organizations, the vulnerability poses a significant risk to confidentiality of sensitive business intelligence data managed via Qlik Sense Enterprise. Attackers exploiting this flaw can bypass authentication controls and access unauthorized endpoints, potentially extracting or manipulating sensitive reports and datasets. This is particularly concerning for sectors such as finance, healthcare, manufacturing, and government agencies that rely heavily on Qlik Sense for data analytics and decision-making. The integrity impact is limited but still present due to possible unauthorized requests. Availability is not directly affected. Exploitation ease and lack of required privileges increase the threat level. Data breaches resulting from this vulnerability could lead to regulatory penalties under GDPR, reputational damage, and operational disruptions. Organizations with exposed Qlik Sense management interfaces or insufficient network segmentation are at higher risk. The absence of known exploits in the wild provides a window for proactive mitigation but should not reduce urgency.

Mitigation

1. Immediately apply the vendor-released patches: August 2023 Interim Release, May 2023 Patch 4, February 2023 Patch 8, November 2022 Patch 11, or August 2022 Patch 13, depending on your installed version. 2. Restrict network access to Qlik Sense management and API endpoints using firewalls or network segmentation to limit exposure to trusted internal networks only. 3. Implement strict access controls and monitor logs for anomalous anonymous session creation or unusual HTTP requests targeting internal endpoints. 4. Conduct a thorough audit of Qlik Sense configurations to ensure no unnecessary services or endpoints are exposed externally. 5. Educate security teams about this vulnerability to enable rapid detection and response to potential exploitation attempts. 6. Consider deploying Web Application Firewalls (WAF) with custom rules to detect and block path traversal attempts targeting Qlik Sense. 7. Regularly review and update incident response plans to include scenarios involving unauthorized access through Qlik Sense vulnerabilities.

CWE-22Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #6OWASP Top 10 A01:2025: Broken Access Control (opens in a new tab)
The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory.
Implementation · Input Validation
Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
Architecture and Design
For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side, in order to avoid CWE-602. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks…
Implementation · Input Validation
Inputs should be decoded and canonicalized to the application's current internal representation before being validated (CWE-180). Make sure that the application does not decode the same input twice (CWE-174).
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Authorization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V12.3.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Path Traversal (opens in a new tab)
Using Slashes and URL Encoding Combined to Bypass Validation Logic (opens in a new tab)
Manipulating Web Input to File System Calls (opens in a new tab)
Using Escaped Slashes in Alternate Encoding (opens in a new tab)
Using Slashes in Alternate Encoding (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).
CWE-20Improper Input Validation (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #18OWASP Top 10 A05:2025: Injection (opens in a new tab)
The product receives input or data, but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input has the properties that are required to process the data safely and correctly.
MITRE discourages mapping vulnerabilities to this broad entry; the root cause is usually a more specific weakness.
Architecture and Design · Attack Surface Reduction
Consider using language-theoretic security (LangSec) techniques that characterize inputs using a formal language and build "recognizers" for that language. This effectively requires parsing to be a distinct layer that effectively enforces a boundary between raw input and internal data representations, instead of…
Architecture and Design · Libraries or Frameworks
Use an input validation framework such as Struts or the OWASP ESAPI Validation API. Note that using a framework does not automatically address all input validation problems; be mindful of weaknesses that could arise from misusing the framework itself (CWE-1173).
Architecture and Design · Implementation · Attack Surface Reduction
Understand all the potential areas where untrusted inputs can enter the product, including but not limited to: parameters or arguments, cookies, anything read from the network, environment variables, reverse DNS lookups, query results, request headers, URL components, e-mail, files, filenames, databases, and any…
OWASP Cheat Sheets
XML Security (opens in a new tab)
Mass Assignment (opens in a new tab)
Injection Prevention (opens in a new tab)
SQL Injection Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Injection Prevention in Java (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V13.3.1 (opens in a new tab)
V5.1.4 (opens in a new tab)
V5.1.3 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Buffer Overflow via Environment Variables (opens in a new tab)
Server Side Include (SSI) Injection (opens in a new tab)
Cross Zone Scripting (opens in a new tab)
Command Line Execution through SQL Injection (opens in a new tab)
Object Relational Mapping Injection (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

Community reviews

Loading reviews…

Exploitation evidence

Timeline

What to do

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 31 Oct 2025, 05:16 UTC

Public exploits and detectiona Nuclei detection template

WeaknessesCWE-22, CWE-20

Technical details

References

Community reviews

Related threats