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DOM clobbering could escalate to XSS

Moderate
bglw published GHSA-gprj-6m2f-j9hx Sep 3, 2024

Package

npm @pagefind/default-ui (npm)

Affected versions

<1.1.1

Patched versions

1.1.1
npm @pagefind/modular-ui (npm)
<1.1.1
1.1.1
npm pagefind (npm)
<1.1.1
1.1.1
cargo pagefind (Rust)
<1.1.1
1.1.1

Description

Pagefind initializes its dynamic JavaScript and WebAssembly files relative to the location of the first script you load. This information is gathered by looking up the value of document.currentScript.src.

It is possible to "clobber" this lookup with otherwise benign HTML on the page, for example:

<img name="currentScript" src="blob:https://xxx.xxx.xxx/ui.js"></img>

This will cause document.currentScript.src to resolve as an external domain, which will then be used by Pagefind to load dependencies.

This exploit would only work in the case that an attacker could inject HTML to your live, hosted, website. In these cases, this would act as a way to escalate the privilege available to an attacker. This assumes they have the ability to add some elements to the page (for example, img tags with a name attribute), but not others, as adding a script to the page would itself be the XSS vector.

Pagefind has tightened this resolution by ensuring the source is loaded from a valid script element. There are no reports of this being exploited in the wild via Pagefind.

Original Report

If an attacker can inject benign html, such as:
<img name="currentScript" src="blob:https://xxx.xxx.xxx/ui.js"></img>

they can clobber document.currentScript.src leading to XSS in your library.

Here is the same attack on webpack that was accepted: GHSA-4vvj-4cpr-p986

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
High
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:H

CVE ID

CVE-2024-45389

Weaknesses

Credits