ViewVC XSS vulnerability in revision view changed paths
ViewVC, a browser interface for CVS and Subversion version control repositories, as a cross-site scripting vulnerability that affects versions prior to 1.2.2 and 1.1.29. The impact of this vulnerability is mitigated by the need for an attacker to have commit privileges to a Subversion repository exposed by an otherwise trusted ViewVC instance. The attack vector involves files with unsafe names (names that, when embedded into an HTML stream, would cause the browser to run unwanted code), which themselves can be challenging to create. Users should update to at least version 1.2.2 (if they are using a 1.2.x version of ViewVC) or 1.1.29 (if they are using a 1.1.x version). ViewVC 1.0.x is no longer supported, so users of that release lineage should implement a workaround. Users can edit their ViewVC EZT view templates to manually HTML-escape changed paths during rendering. Locate in your template set's `revision.ezt` file references to those changed paths, and wrap them with `[format "html"]` and `[end]`. For most users, that means that references to `[changes.path]` will become `[format "html"][changes.path][end]`. (This workaround should be reverted after upgrading to a patched version of ViewVC, else changed path names will be doubly escaped.)
- Products
- Not specified
- Affected versions
- Not specified
- Fixed versions
- Not specified
- CVEs
- CVE-2023-22456
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 3 Nov 2026, 15:53 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
ViewVC XSS vulnerability in revision view changed paths
core-osv · Original sourcePublished 3 Jan 2023, 18:29 UTC
ViewVC, a browser interface for CVS and Subversion version control repositories, as a cross-site scripting vulnerability that affects versions prior to 1.2.2 and 1.1.29. The impact of this vulnerability is mitigated by the need for an attacker to have commit privileges to a Subversion repository exposed by an otherwise trusted ViewVC instance. The attack vector involves files with unsafe names (names that, when embedded into an HTML stream, would cause the browser to run unwanted code), which themselves can be challenging to create. Users should update to at least version 1.2.2 (if they are using a 1.2.x version of ViewVC) or 1.1.29 (if they are using a 1.1.x version). ViewVC 1.0.x is no longer supported, so users of that release lineage should implement a workaround. Users can edit their ViewVC EZT view templates to manually HTML-escape changed paths during rendering. Locate in your template set's `revision.ezt` file references to those changed paths, and wrap them with `[format "html"]` and `[end]`. For most users, that means that references to `[changes.path]` will become `[format "html"][changes.path][end]`. (This workaround should be reverted after upgrading to a patched version of ViewVC, else changed path names will be doubly escaped.)
osv:CVE-2023-22456
Complete source record
{
"id": "0e26bea78405eea6bd20c25f39079d5904fa9ab1088d8c0a852544e7d7ad59ef",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-22456",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "ViewVC XSS vulnerability in revision view changed paths",
"summary": "ViewVC, a browser interface for CVS and Subversion version control repositories, as a cross-site scripting vulnerability that affects versions prior to 1.2.2 and 1.1.29. The impact of this vulnerability is mitigated by the need for an attacker to have commit privileges to a Subversion repository exposed by an otherwise trusted ViewVC instance. The attack vector involves files with unsafe names (names that, when embedded into an HTML stream, would cause the browser to run unwanted code), which themselves can be challenging to create. Users should update to at least version 1.2.2 (if they are using a 1.2.x version of ViewVC) or 1.1.29 (if they are using a 1.1.x version). ViewVC 1.0.x is no longer supported, so users of that release lineage should implement a workaround. Users can edit their ViewVC EZT view templates to manually HTML-escape changed paths during rendering. Locate in your template set's `revision.ezt` file references to those changed paths, and wrap them with `[format \"html\"]` and `[end]`. For most users, that means that references to `[changes.path]` will become `[format \"html\"][changes.path][end]`. (This workaround should be reverted after upgrading to a patched version of ViewVC, else changed path names will be doubly escaped.)",
"evidence": "osv:CVE-2023-22456",
"products": [],
"severity": "medium",
"structured": {
"id": "CVE-2023-22456",
"aliases": [
"CVE-2023-22456",
"GHSA-j4mx-f97j-gc5g"
],
"metrics": [
{
"type": "CVSS_V3",
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N"
}
],
"affected": [
{
"ranges": [
{
"repo": "https://github.com/viewvc/viewvc",
"type": "GIT",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "4ebb76ccdc1bcc57d54f25e9c0c2c9a25148e2fc"
},
{
"introduced": "3ab6e43ddb3096749c0de4706b8514486c8ba92f"
},
{
"fixed": "8c1fa28880174e3bf1ba4fd762f0a23c4f0be1c4"
}
],
"database_specific": {
"extracted_events": [
{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:viewvc:viewvc:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
"range": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "1.1.29"
}
],
"source": "CPE_RANGE"
},
{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:viewvc:viewvc:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
"range": [
{
"introduced": "1.2.0"
},
{
"fixed": "1.2.2"
}
],
"source": "CPE_RANGE"
},
{
"range": [
{
"fixed": "4ebb76ccdc1bcc57d54f25e9c0c2c9a25148e2fc"
}
],
"source": "REFERENCES_TAG",
"original_tag": "1.1.29"
},
{
"range": [
{
"fixed": "8c1fa28880174e3bf1ba4fd762f0a23c4f0be1c4"
}
],
"source": "REFERENCES_TAG",
"original_tag": "1.2.2"
}
]
}
}
],
"versions": [
"1.1.28",
"1.2.1",
"1.2.0",
"1.1.27",
"1.1.26",
"1.1.25"
],
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2023-22456.json"
}
}
],
"modified": "2026-10-28T02:30:30.408421532Z",
"provider": "osv",
"references": [
"https://github.com/viewvc/viewvc/releases/tag/1.1.29",
"https://github.com/viewvc/viewvc/releases/tag/1.2.2",
"https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2023/22xxx/CVE-2023-22456.json",
"https://github.com/viewvc/viewvc/security/advisories/GHSA-j4mx-f97j-gc5g",
"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-22456",
"https://github.com/viewvc/viewvc/issues/311"
],
"provider_metadata": {
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-79"
],
"cna_assigner": "GitHub_M",
"osv_generated_from": "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2023/22xxx/CVE-2023-22456.json"
}
},
"related_cves": [
{
"value": "CVE-2023-22456",
"evidence": "/id"
}
],
"security_relevant": true,
"severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
},
"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 497032,
"published_at": "2023-01-03T18:29:51.262+00:00"
}