CVE-2023-28837

Wagtail vulnerable to denial-of-service via memory exhaustion when uploading large files

Severity Score

4.9

*CVSS v3.1

Exploit Likelihood

*EPSS

Affected Versions

*CPE

Public Exploits

*Multiple Sources

Exploited in Wild

*KEV

Decision

*SSVC

Descriptions

Wagtail is an open source content management system built on Django. Prior to versions 4.1.4 and 4.2.2, a memory exhaustion bug exists in Wagtail's handling of uploaded images and documents. For both images and documents, files are loaded into memory during upload for additional processing. A user with access to upload images or documents through the Wagtail admin interface could upload a file so large that it results in a crash of denial of service.

The vulnerability is not exploitable by an ordinary site visitor without access to the Wagtail admin. It can only be exploited by admin users with permission to upload images or documents.

Image uploads are restricted to 10MB by default, however this validation only happens on the frontend and on the backend after the vulnerable code.

Patched versions have been released as Wagtail 4.1.4 and Wagtail 4.2.2). Site owners who are unable to upgrade to the new versions are encouraged to add extra protections outside of Wagtail to limit the size of uploaded files.

*Credits: N/A

CVSS Scores

NISTv3.1 4.9

Attack Vector

Network

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

High

User Interaction

None

Scope

Unchanged

Confidentiality

None

Integrity

None

Availability

High

* Common Vulnerability Scoring System

SSVC

Decision:-

Exploitation

Automatable

Tech. Impact

* Organization's Worst-case Scenario

Timeline

2023-03-24 CVE Reserved
2023-04-03 CVE Published
2024-08-02 CVE Updated
2024-10-24 EPSS Updated
---------- Exploited in Wild
---------- KEV Due Date
---------- First Exploit

CWE

CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

CAPEC

References (8)

URL	Tag	Source
https://docs.wagtail.org/en/stable/reference/settings.html#wagtailimages-max-upload-size	Product
https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/c9d2fcd650a88d76ae122646142245e5927a9165	Release Notes
https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/d4022310cbe497993459c3136311467c7ac6329a	Release Notes
https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/releases/tag/v4.1.4	Release Notes
https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/releases/tag/v4.2.2	Release Notes

URL	Date	SRC

URL	Date	SRC
https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/3c0c64642b9e5b8d28b111263c7f4bddad6c3880	2023-11-07
https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/cfa11bbe00dbe7ce8cd4c0bbfe2a898a690df2bf	2023-11-07

URL	Date	SRC
https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/security/advisories/GHSA-33pv-vcgh-jfg9	2023-11-07

Affected Vendors, Products, and Versions

Vendor		Product				Version		Other		Status
Vendor	Product	Version	Other	Status	<-- -->	Vendor	Product	Version	Other	Status
Torchbox Search vendor "Torchbox"		Wagtail Search vendor "Torchbox" for product "Wagtail"				< 4.1.4 Search vendor "Torchbox" for product "Wagtail" and version " < 4.1.4"		-		Affected
Torchbox Search vendor "Torchbox"		Wagtail Search vendor "Torchbox" for product "Wagtail"				>= 4.2 < 4.2.2 Search vendor "Torchbox" for product "Wagtail" and version " >= 4.2 < 4.2.2"		-		Affected