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Sanitize vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting via insufficient neutralization of `style` element content

High severity GitHub Reviewed Published Jul 6, 2023 in rgrove/sanitize • Updated Nov 23, 2023

Package

bundler sanitize (RubyGems)

Affected versions

>= 3.0.0, < 6.0.2

Patched versions

6.0.2

Description

Impact

Using carefully crafted input, an attacker may be able to sneak arbitrary HTML and CSS through Sanitize >= 3.0.0, < 6.0.2 when Sanitize is configured to use the built-in "relaxed" config or when using a custom config that allows style elements and one or more CSS at-rules. This could result in XSS (cross-site scripting) or other undesired behavior when the malicious HTML and CSS are rendered in a browser.

Patches

Sanitize >= 6.0.2 performs additional escaping of CSS in style element content, which fixes this issue.

Workarounds

Users who are unable to upgrade can prevent this issue by using a Sanitize config that doesn't allow style elements, using a Sanitize config that doesn't allow CSS at-rules, or by manually escaping the character sequence </ as <\/ in style element content.

Credit

This issue was found by @cure53 during an audit of a project that uses Sanitize and was reported by one of that project's maintainers. Thank you!

References

@rgrove rgrove published to rgrove/sanitize Jul 6, 2023
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Jul 6, 2023
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Jul 6, 2023
Reviewed Jul 6, 2023
Last updated Nov 23, 2023

Severity

High
7.1
/ 10

CVSS base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
Low
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:L

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2023-36823

GHSA ID

GHSA-f5ww-cq3m-q3g7

Source code

Credits

Checking history
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