Auth Backend Cross-site Scripting

Backstage is an open platform for building developer portals. In affected versions the auth-backend plugin allows a malicious actor to trick another user into visiting a vulnerable URL that executes an XSS attack. This attack can potentially allow the attacker to exfiltrate access tokens or other secrets from the user's browser. The default CSP does prevent this attack, but it is expected that some deployments have these policies disabled due to incompatibilities. This is vulnerability is patched in version `0.4.9` of `@backstage/plugin-auth-backend`. (2021-11-26, CVE-2021-43776)

Cross site scripting is an attack where a web page executes code that is injected by an adversary. It usually appears, when users input is presented. This attack can be used to impersonate a user, take over control of the session, or even steal API keys.

The attack can be executed e.g. when you application injects the request parameter directly into the HTML code of the page returned to the user:

https://server.com/confirmation?message=Transaction+Complete

what results in:

<span>Confirmation: Transaction Complete</span>

In that case the message can be modified to become a valid Javascript code, e.g.:

https://server.com/confirmation?message=<script>dangerous javascript code here</script>

and it will be executed locally by the user's browser with full access to the user's personal application/browser data:

<span>Confirmation: <script>dangerous javascript code here</script></span>