Wagtail
CVE-2023-28837
MEDIUM
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A06:2025 - Insecure Design
ASVS 5.0
V2 - Validation and Business Logic Resource consumption limits
MITRE ATT&CK
1 technique across 1 tactic: Impact The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Impact | CVSS score of 4.9 (MEDIUM). Attack characteristics: network attack vector, low complexity, high privileges required, no user interaction not required. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A remote attacker could cause denial of service by exhausting system resources by sending crafted requests to the affected application. |
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Alert meAnalysisAI
Wagtail is an open source content management system built on Django. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.9), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. This Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability could allow attackers to cause denial of service by exhausting system resources.
RemediationAI
A vendor patch is available. Apply the latest security update as soon as possible. Implement rate limiting, set resource quotas, validate input sizes, use timeouts.
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in pypi
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 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400), which allows attackers to cause denial of service by exhausting system resources. 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. Affected products include: Torchbox Wagtail.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
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.
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
Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.
Affected Products (CPE)NVD
In Wagtail before versions 2.8.1 and 2.7.2, a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability exists on the page revision compa
Wagtail is an open source content management system built on Django. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.4), this vulnerabilit
Reflected cross-site scripting in the Wagtail Django CMS admin interface lets a low-privilege editor craft a malicious U
Wagtail is an open source content management system built on Django. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.5), this vulnerabilit
Missing authorization on the image preview endpoint in Wagtail CMS allows any authenticated admin-panel user to render p
Stored XSS in Wagtail's TableBlock allows authenticated users with page editing permissions to inject malicious class at
Stored XSS in Wagtail's simple_translation module allows authenticated admin users to inject malicious JavaScript throug
Reflected cross-site scripting in APSL Puput v1.2.1 through v2.2.0 lets an authenticated user holding Wagtail Editor pri
Wagtail is an open source content management system built on Django. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.4), this vulnerabilit
In Wagtail before versions 2.7.4 and 2.9.3, when a form page type is made available to Wagtail editors through the `wagt
Wagtail is a Django content management system. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploita
In Wagtail before versions 2.7.3 and 2.8.2, a potential timing attack exists on pages or documents that have been protec
Exploit-DB