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XSS vulnerability with translator

Critical
luceos published GHSA-5qjq-69w6-fg57 Jun 6, 2021

Package

composer flarum/core (Composer)

Affected versions

1.0.0, 1.0.1

Patched versions

1.0.2

Description

Flarum's translation system allowed for string inputs to be converted into HTML DOM nodes when rendered. This change was made after v0.1.0-beta.16 (our last beta before v1.0.0) and was not noticed or documented.

This allowed for any user to type malicious HTML markup within certain user input fields and have this execute on client browsers. The example which led to the discovery of this vulnerability was in the forum search box. Entering faux-malicious HTML markup, such as <script>alert('test')</script> resulted in an alert box appearing on the forum. This attack could also be modified to perform AJAX requests on behalf of a user, possibly deleting discussions, modifying their settings or profile, or even modifying settings on the Admin panel if the attack was targetted towards a privileged user.

Impact

All Flarum communities that run flarum v1.0.0 or v1.0.1 are impacted.

Patches

The vulnerability has been fixed and published as flarum/core v1.0.2. All communities running Flarum v1.0 have to upgrade as soon as possible to v1.0.2 using:

composer update --prefer-dist --no-dev -a -W

You can then confirm you run the latest version using:

composer show flarum/core

Workarounds

None.

For more information

For any questions or comments on this vulnerability please visit https://discuss.flarum.org/d/27558.

For support questions create a discussion at https://discuss.flarum.org/t/support.

A reminder that if you ever become aware of a security issue in Flarum, please report it to us privately by emailing [email protected], and we will address it promptly.

Severity

Critical

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
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
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:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

CVE ID

CVE-2021-32671

Weaknesses

No CWEs

Credits