CVE-2023-4959VulnerabilityPublished 15 Sep 2023Updated 7 Nov 2025

CVE-2023-4959: Red Hat Quay 3 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

Affects Red Hat Quay 3Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.5 Medium.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.5Medium

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

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 22% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

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

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: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
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.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 15 Sep 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 2026-10-25.

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

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2023-4959, organizations should implement the following specific measures: 1) Apply any available patches or updates from Red Hat promptly once released to address the CSRF vulnerability in Quay 3. 2) Enforce strict CSRF protections by ensuring that anti-CSRF tokens are implemented and validated on all state-changing requests, especially on the config-editor page. 3) Restrict access to the Quay management interface to trusted networks and users via network segmentation and firewall rules to reduce exposure to external CSRF attempts. 4) Implement Content Security Policy (CSP) headers and SameSite cookie attributes to limit cross-origin request capabilities from untrusted domains. 5) Educate users about the risks of visiting untrusted websites while authenticated to critical services like Quay. 6) Monitor logs for unusual configuration changes or administrative user additions to detect potential exploitation attempts. 7) Consider multi-factor authentication (MFA) for administrative access to add an additional security layer, even though the vulnerability does not require authentication. 8) Regularly audit container registry configurations and user privileges to quickly identify unauthorized changes. These targeted actions go beyond generic advice by focusing on the specific attack vector and operational context of Red Hat Quay 3.

Description

A flaw was found in Quay. Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attacks force a user to perform unwanted actions in an application. During the pentest, it was detected that the config-editor page is vulnerable to CSRF. The config-editor page is used to configure the Quay instance. By coercing the victim’s browser into sending an attacker-controlled request from another domain, it is possible to reconfigure the Quay instance (including adding users with admin privileges).

Impact

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a risk primarily to the availability and operational integrity of container image registries managed via Red Hat Quay 3. Successful exploitation could allow attackers to alter configurations, potentially causing service disruptions or unauthorized administrative access, which could cascade into broader security incidents such as unauthorized container deployments or privilege escalations. Organizations heavily reliant on containerized environments for development, testing, or production workloads may experience downtime or compromised container image integrity. Given the critical role of container registries in modern DevOps pipelines, this could impact software delivery timelines and operational continuity. Additionally, unauthorized administrative access could lead to further lateral movement within the network or exposure of sensitive container images. The lack of confidentiality and integrity impact in the CVSS vector suggests data leakage or tampering is less likely, but the availability impact remains significant. European organizations must consider the risk in the context of compliance with regulations such as GDPR, where service availability and integrity are important for operational resilience.

Summary

CVE-2023-4959 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability identified in Red Hat Quay 3, an enterprise container registry platform used for storing and distributing container images. The vulnerability resides in the config-editor page, which is responsible for configuring the Quay instance. CSRF attacks exploit the trust a web application places in a user's browser by tricking the user into submitting unauthorized requests to the application from a malicious site. In this case, an attacker can coerce a victim’s browser into sending attacker-controlled requests to the config-editor page without the victim’s consent or knowledge. This can lead to unauthorized reconfiguration of the Quay instance, including the addition of users with administrative privileges. The vulnerability does not require prior authentication (PR:N) but does require user interaction (UI:R), such as visiting a malicious website. The CVSS vector indicates network attack vector (AV:N), low attack complexity (AC:L), no confidentiality or integrity impact (C:N/I:N), but a high impact on availability (A:H), suggesting that the primary risk is disruption or denial of service through misconfiguration. Although no known exploits are currently reported in the wild, the potential for privilege escalation and service disruption makes this a significant concern for organizations relying on Red Hat Quay 3 for container image management. The vulnerability was published on September 15, 2023, and no patches or mitigations were explicitly linked in the provided data, indicating that organizations should monitor Red Hat advisories closely for updates.

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 7 Nov 2025, 01:48 UTC

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