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Privilege escalation via the footnote macro

Critical
michitux published GHSA-35j5-m29r-xfq5 Oct 25, 2023

Package

maven org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-core-rendering-macro-footnotes (Maven)

Affected versions

< 14.10.6

Patched versions

14.10.6
maven org.xwiki.rendering:xwiki-rendering-macro-footnotes (Maven)
< 14.10.6
>= 15.0-rc-1, < 15.1-rc-1
14.10.6
15.1-rc-1

Description

Impact

The footnote macro executed its content in a potentially different context than the one in which it was defined. In particular in combination with the include macro, this allows privilege escalation from a simple user account in XWiki to programming rights and thus remote code execution, impacting the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the whole XWiki installation.

To reproduce, perform the following steps:

  1. Edit your user profile with the object editor and add an object of type DocumentSheetBinding with value XWiki.ClassSheet
  2. Edit your user profile with the wiki editor and add the syntax {{footnote}}{{groovy}}println("Hello " + "from groovy!"){{/groovy}}{{/footnote}}

When the text "Hello from groovy!" is displayed at the bottom of the document, the installation is vulnerable. Instead, an error should be displayed.

Patches

This vulnerability has been patched in XWiki 14.10.6 and 15.1-rc-1.

Workarounds

There is no workaround apart from upgrading to a fixed version of the footnote macro.

References

Severity

Critical

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

CVE ID

CVE-2023-37912

Weaknesses