# CVE-2023-29453: Agent 2 package are built with Go version affected by CVE-2023-24538

> Attackers can inject arbitrary JavaScript into Go templates via backticks, potentially leading to code execution in Zabbix deployments.

- **Severity:** Critical 9.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 12 Oct 2023
- **Updated:** 18 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2023-29453, GHSA-7374-hfgm-rm8v, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-29453

## What is CVE-2023-29453?

CVE-2023-29453 is a critical code injection vulnerability in Zabbix, published on 12 Oct 2023. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Templates do not properly consider backticks (`) as Javascript string delimiters, and do not escape them as expected. Backticks are used, since ES6, for JS template literals. If a template contains a Go template action within a Javascript template literal, the contents of the action can be used to terminate the literal, injecting arbitrary Javascript code into the Go template. As ES6 template literals are rather complex, and themselves can do string interpolation, the decision was made to simply disallow Go template actions from being used inside of them (e.g., "var a = {{.}}"), since there is no obviously safe way to allow this behavior. This takes the same approach as github.com/google/safehtml. With fix, Template. Parse returns an Error when it encounters templates like this, with an ErrorCode of value 12. This ErrorCode is currently unexported but will be exported in the release of Go 1.21. Users who rely on the previous behavior can re-enable it using the GODEBUG flag jstmpllitinterp=1, with the caveat that backticks will now be escaped. This should be used with caution.

Weakness: CWE-94 (Improper Control of Generation of Code)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-29453?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Zabbix Zabbix-Agent2.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-29453?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2023-29453 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-29453 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Zabbix

- [CVE-2022-22704](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-22704/): Privilege escalation in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2023-32728](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-32728/): Code injection in zabbix_agent2 smart.disk.get caused by smartctl plugin (medium 4.6)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-29453 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-29453 is a critical code injection vulnerability in Zabbix, published on 12 Oct 2023. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-29453 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Zabbix. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-29453/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-29453/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-29453
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-29453
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-29453

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-29453/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.