RubySec

Providing security resources for the Ruby community

CVE-2024-32463 (phlex): Cross-site Scripting (XSS) possible due to improper sanitisation of `href` attributes on `` tags

ADVISORIES

GEM

phlex

SEVERITY

CVSS v3.x: 7.1 (High)

PATCHED VERSIONS

  • ~> 1.4.2
  • ~> 1.5.3
  • ~> 1.6.3
  • ~> 1.7.2
  • ~> 1.8.3
  • ~> 1.9.2
  • >= 1.10.1

DESCRIPTION

Summary

There is a potential cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability that can be exploited via maliciously crafted user data.

Our filter to detect and prevent the use of the javascript: URL scheme in the href attribute of an <a> tag could be bypassed with tab \t or newline \n characters between the characters of the protocol, e.g. java\tscript:.

Impact

If you render an <a> tag with an href attribute set to a user-provided link, that link could potentially execute JavaScript when clicked by another user.

a(href: user_profile) { "Profile" }

Mitigation

The best way to mitigate this vulnerability is to update to one of the following versions:

Workarounds

Configuring a Content Security Policy that does not allow unsafe-inline would effectively prevent this vulnerability from being exploited.

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