CVE-2023-46238: XSS with User Avatar image in ZITADEL

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.4 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2023-10-26 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-79

Description

ZITADEL is an identity infrastructure management system. ZITADEL users can upload their own avatar image using various image types including SVG. SVG can include scripts, such as javascript, which can be executed during rendering. Due to a missing security header, an attacker could inject code to an SVG to gain access to the victim’s account in certain scenarios. A victim would need to directly open the malicious image in the browser, where a single session in ZITADEL needs to be active for this exploit to work. If the possible victim had multiple or no active sessions in ZITADEL, the attack would not succeed. This issue has been patched in version 2.39.2 and 2.38.2.

Affected products

zitadel: before 2.38.2; from 2.39.0 before 2.39.2 — fixed in 2.38.2, 2.39.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: zitadel 2.38.2, 2.39.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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