CVE-2023-28837

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.

• CWE-400
• CWE-770

• https://docs.wagtail.org/en/stable/reference/settings.html#wagtailimages-max-upload-sizeProduct
• https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/3c0c64642b9e5b8d28b111263c7f4bddad6c3880Patch
• https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/c9d2fcd650a88d76ae122646142245e5927a9165Release Notes
• https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/cfa11bbe00dbe7ce8cd4c0bbfe2a898a690df2bfPatch
• https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/d4022310cbe497993459c3136311467c7ac6329aRelease Notes
• https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/releases/tag/v4.1.4Release Notes
• https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/releases/tag/v4.2.2Release Notes
• https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/security/advisories/GHSA-33pv-vcgh-jfg9Mitigation, Vendor Advisory
• https://docs.wagtail.org/en/stable/reference/settings.html#wagtailimages-max-upload-sizeProduct
• https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/3c0c64642b9e5b8d28b111263c7f4bddad6c3880Patch
• https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/c9d2fcd650a88d76ae122646142245e5927a9165Release Notes
• https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/cfa11bbe00dbe7ce8cd4c0bbfe2a898a690df2bfPatch
• https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/d4022310cbe497993459c3136311467c7ac6329aRelease Notes
• https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/releases/tag/v4.1.4Release Notes
• https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/releases/tag/v4.2.2Release Notes
• https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/security/advisories/GHSA-33pv-vcgh-jfg9Mitigation, Vendor Advisory

Published

Apr 3, 2023

Last Modified

Jun 17, 2026

Status

Modified