Neo4j
CVE-2023-23926
HIGH
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A02:2025 - Security Misconfiguration
ASVS 5.0
V13 - Configuration XML external entity prevention
MITRE ATT&CK
2 techniques across 2 tactics: Initial Access, Collection The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Impact | CVSS score of 8.1 (HIGH). Attack characteristics: network attack vector, low complexity, low privileges required, no user interaction not required. Public proof-of-concept exploit code is available. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A remote attacker could read arbitrary files or perform SSRF through XML processing by sending crafted requests to the affected application. |
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Alert meAnalysisAI
APOC (Awesome Procedures on Cypher) is an add-on library for Neo4j. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.1), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. Public exploit code available.
RemediationAI
A vendor patch is available. Apply the latest security update as soon as possible. Disable external entity processing in XML parsers, use JSON instead of XML where possible.
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in maven
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
This vulnerability is classified as XML External Entity (XXE) (CWE-611), which allows attackers to read arbitrary files or perform SSRF through XML processing. APOC (Awesome Procedures on Cypher) is an add-on library for Neo4j. An XML External Entity (XXE) vulnerability found in the apoc.import.graphml procedure of APOC core plugin prior to version 5.5.0 and 4.4.0.14 (4.4 branch) in Neo4j graph database. XML External Entity (XXE) injection occurs when the XML parser allows external entities to be resolved. The XML parser used by the apoc.import.graphml procedure was not configured in a secure way and therefore allowed this. External entities can be used to read local files, send HTTP requests, and perform denial-of-service attacks on the application. Abusing the XXE vulnerability enabled assessors to read local files remotely. Although with the level of privileges assessors had this was limited to one-line files. With the ability to write to the database, any file could have been read. Additionally, assessors noted, with local testing, the server could be crashed by passing in improperly formatted XML. The minimum version containing a patch for this vulnerability is 5.5.0. Those who cannot upgrade the library can control the allowlist of the procedures that can be used in your system. Affected products include: Neo4J Awesome Procedures On Cyper. Version information: version 5.5.0.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
APOC (Awesome Procedures on Cypher) is an add-on library for Neo4j. An XML External Entity (XXE) vulnerability found in the apoc.import.graphml procedure of APOC core plugin prior to version 5.5.0 and 4.4.0.14 (4.4 branch) in Neo4j graph database. XML External Entity (XXE) injection occurs when the XML parser allows external entities to be resolved. The XML parser used by the apoc.import.graphml procedure was not configured in a secure way and therefore allowed this. External entities can be used to read local files, send HTTP requests, and perform denial-of-service attacks on the application. Abusing the XXE vulnerability enabled assessors to read local files remotely. Although with the level of privileges assessors had this was limited to one-line files. With the ability to write to the database, any file could have been read. Additionally, assessors noted, with local testing, the server could be crashed by passing in improperly formatted XML. The minimum version containing a patch for this vulnerability is 5.5.0. Those who cannot upgrade the library can control the allowlist of the procedures that can be used in your system.
Threat Intelligence Overview
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
GitHub
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
XML External Entity (XXE) attacks exploit XML parsers that process Document Type Definitions (DTDs) without proper restrictions.
Affected Products (CPE)NVD
neo4j-contrib neo4j-apoc-procedures version before commit 45bc09c contains a XML External Entity (XXE) vulnerability in
Neo4j through 3.4.18 (with the shell server enabled) exposes an RMI service that arbitrarily deserializes Java objects,
Due to incorrect access control in Neo4j Enterprise Database Server 3.4.x before 3.4.9, the setting of LDAP for authenti
Neo4j APOC (Awesome Procedures on Cypher) before 4.3.0.7 and 4.x before 4.4.0.8 allows Directory Traversal to sibling di
Schema-level and Query/Mutation type-level @authentication directives are silently ignored for top-level @cypher fields
A failure in resetting the security context in some transaction actions in Neo4j Graph Database 4.2 and 4.3 could allow
Authorization bypass in @neo4j/graphql 7.0.0 through 7.6.3 lets an authenticated user read, create, and delete records t
JWT authentication bypass in @neo4j/graphql allows unauthenticated remote clients to forge arbitrary JWT claims over Gra
Authentication bypass in @neo4j/graphql exposes admin-restricted custom-resolver fields to any authenticated user holdin
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in Neo4J 1.9.2 allow remote attackers to hijack the authentic
The Cypher component in Neo4j 5.0.0 through 5.18 mishandles IMMUTABLE privileges in some situations where an attacker al
Bolt protocol handshake decoder in Neo4j Enterprise and Community Editions fails to distinguish overlong capability mask
Exploit-DB