CVE-2023-38490: Improper Restriction of Recursive Entity References in DTDs ('XML Entity Expansion')

Kirby is a content management system. A vulnerability in versions prior to 3.5.8.3, 3.6.6.3, 3.7.5.2, 3.8.4.1, and 3.9.6 only affects Kirby sites that use the Xml data handler (e.g. Data::decode($string, 'xml')) or the Xml::parse() method in site or plugin code. The Kirby core does not use any of the affected methods.

XML External Entities (XXE) is a little used feature in the XML markup language that allows to include data from external files in an XML structure. If the name of the external file can be controlled by an attacker, this becomes a vulnerability that can be abused for various system impacts like the disclosure of internal or confidential data that is stored on the server (arbitrary file disclosure) or to perform network requests on behalf of the server (server-side request forgery, SSRF).

Kirby’s Xml::parse() method used PHP’s LIBXML_NOENT constant, which enabled the processing of XML external entities during the parsing operation. The Xml::parse() method is used in the Xml data handler (e.g. Data::decode($string, 'xml')). Both the vulnerable method and the data handler are not used in the Kirby core. However they may be used in site or plugin code, e.g. to parse RSS feeds or other XML files. If those files are of an external origin (e.g. uploaded by a user or retrieved from an external URL), attackers may be able to include an external entity in the XML file that will then be processed in the parsing process. Kirby sites that don’t use XML parsing in site or plugin code are not affected.

The problem has been patched in Kirby 3.5.8.3, 3.6.6.3, 3.7.5.2, 3.8.4.1, and 3.9.6. In all of the mentioned releases, the maintainers have removed the LIBXML_NOENT constant as processing of external entities is out of scope of the parsing logic. This protects all uses of the method against the described vulnerability.