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Path Traversal occurrences in Backstage

@backstage/plugin-scaffolder-backend is the backend for the default Backstage software templates. In affected versions a malicious actor with write access to a registered scaffolder template is able to manipulate the template in a way that writes files to arbitrary paths on the scaffolder-backend host instance. This vulnerability can in some situation also be exploited through user input when executing a template, meaning you do not need write access to the templates. This method will not allow the attacker to control the contents of the injected file however, unless the template is also crafted in a specific way that gives control of the file contents. This vulnerability is fixed in version `0.15.14` of the `@backstage/plugin-scaffolder-backend`. This attack is mitigated by restricting access and requiring reviews when registering or modifying scaffolder templates. (2021-11-29, CVE-2021-43783)

Backstage is an open platform for building developer portals. In affected versions A malicious actor could read sensitive files from the environment where Scaffolder Tasks are run. The attack is executed by crafting a custom Scaffolder template with a `github:publish:pull-request` action and a particular source path. When the template is executed the sensitive files would be included in the published pull request. This vulnerability is mitigated by the fact that an attacker would need access to create and register templates in the Backstage catalog, and that the attack is very visible given that the exfiltration happens via a pull request. The vulnerability is patched in the `0.15.9` release of `@backstage/plugin-scaffolder-backend`. (2021-10-18, CVE-2021-41151)

Backstage is an open platform for building developer portals, and techdocs-common contains common functionalities for Backstage's TechDocs. In `@backstage/techdocs-common` versions prior to 0.6.3, a malicious actor could read sensitive files from the environment where TechDocs documentation is built and published by setting a particular path for `docs_dir` in `mkdocs.yml`. These files would then be available over the TechDocs backend API. This vulnerability is mitigated by the fact that an attacker would need access to modify the `mkdocs.yml` in the documentation source code, and would also need access to the TechDocs backend API. The vulnerability is patched in the `0.6.3` release of `@backstage/techdocs-common`. (2021-06-03, CVE-2021-32662)

Why Path Traversal can be dangerous

Relative Path Confusion means that your web server is configured to serve responses to ambiguous URLs. This configuration can possibly cause confusion about the correct relative path for the URL. It is also an issue of resources, such as images, styles etc., which are specified in the response using relative path, not the absolute URL.

If the web browser permits to parse "cross-content" response, the attacker may be able to fool the web browser into interpreting HTML into other content types, which can then lead to a cross site scripting attack (link do XSS).

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