VulnerabilityPublished 29 Nov 2023Updated 5 Jun 2025

CVE-2023-44383: octobercms october · Cross-site Scripting

Affects octobercms octoberSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.4 Medium : upgrade to 3.5.2 when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 14:05 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.4Medium

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

EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 34% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 3.5.2

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

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

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

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).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Changed: An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.
Confidentiality: Low: There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to the impacted component.
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.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 29 Nov 2023
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (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 or the CVSS exploit maturity 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

Upgrade octobercms/october to 3.5.2.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
GitHuboctobercms/october`pkg:github/octobercms/october`Other threats	Affected <3.5.2	Fixed in 3.5.2

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

Upgrade OctoberCMS installations to version 3.5.2 or later, where the vulnerability has been patched.
Restrict media manager access strictly to trusted users and review user roles to minimize the number of users with upload privileges.
Implement additional input validation and sanitization controls for SVG files, possibly using external sanitization libraries or services that strip scripts from SVG content before upload.
Monitor logs and user activity within the CMS for unusual behavior related to media uploads or access patterns.
Educate users with media manager access about the risks of uploading untrusted SVG files and enforce policies to only upload files from verified sources.
Consider disabling SVG support in the media manager if not required, or convert SVGs to safer formats before upload.
Regularly audit and update CMS plugins and dependencies to reduce the attack surface.
Employ Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to limit the impact of potential XSS attacks by restricting script execution contexts.

Description

October is a Content Management System (CMS) and web platform to assist with development workflow. A user with access to the media manager that stores SVG files could create a stored XSS attack against themselves and any other user with access to the media manager when SVG files are supported. This issue has been patched in version 3.5.2.

Impact

For European organizations using OctoberCMS, this vulnerability poses a risk primarily to internal users with media manager access. If exploited, attackers could execute arbitrary scripts in the context of other users, potentially leading to session theft, unauthorized changes to content or configurations, and lateral movement within the CMS environment. This could compromise the integrity and confidentiality of website content and administrative data. Given that OctoberCMS is used by various businesses, including SMEs and agencies for website management, the impact could extend to customer data exposure or defacement of public-facing websites. While the vulnerability does not directly affect availability, the reputational damage and potential data breaches could have regulatory implications under GDPR, especially if personal data is exposed or manipulated. The requirement for at least limited privileges reduces the risk from external attackers but highlights the importance of internal user access controls. Organizations relying on OctoberCMS for critical web infrastructure should consider this vulnerability significant enough to warrant immediate patching to prevent exploitation.

CWE-79Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #1OWASP Top 10 A05:2025: Injection (opens in a new tab)
The product does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes user-controllable input before it is placed in output that is used as a web page that is served to other users.
Architecture and Design · Libraries or Frameworks
Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
Implementation · Architecture and Design
Understand the context in which your data will be used and the encoding that will be expected. This is especially important when transmitting data between different components, or when generating outputs that can contain multiple encodings at the same time, such as web pages or multi-part mail messages.
Architecture and Design · Implementation · Attack Surface Reduction
Understand all the potential areas where untrusted inputs can enter your software: 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 external systems that provide…
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Cross Site Scripting Prevention (opens in a new tab)
DOM based XSS Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Injection Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Abuse Case (opens in a new tab)
Deserialization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V5.3.3 (opens in a new tab)
V1.5.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XSS Using MIME Type Mismatch (opens in a new tab)
DOM-Based XSS (opens in a new tab)
Reflected XSS (opens in a new tab)
Stored XSS (opens in a new tab)
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 7 Jul 2025, 09:43 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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