Dependency-track Frontend Cross-site Scripting

@dependencytrack/frontend is a Single Page Application (SPA) used in Dependency-Track, an open source Component Analysis platform that allows organizations to identify and reduce risk in the software supply chain. Due to the common practice of providing vulnerability details in markdown format, the Dependency-Track frontend renders them using the JavaScript library Showdown. Showdown does not have any XSS countermeasures built in, and versions before 4.6.1 of the Dependency-Track frontend did not encode or sanitize Showdown's output. This made it possible for arbitrary JavaScript included in vulnerability details via HTML attributes to be executed in context of the frontend. Actors with the `VULNERABILITY_MANAGEMENT` permission can exploit this weakness by creating or editing a custom vulnerability and providing XSS payloads in any of the following fields: Description, Details, Recommendation, or References. The payload will be executed for users with the `VIEW_PORTFOLIO` permission when browsing to the modified vulnerability's page. Alternatively, malicious JavaScript could be introduced via any of the vulnerability databases mirrored by Dependency-Track. However, this attack vector is highly unlikely, and the maintainers of Dependency-Track are not aware of any occurrence of this happening. Note that the `Vulnerability Details` element of the `Audit Vulnerabilities` tab in the project view is not affected. The issue has been fixed in frontend version 4.6.1. (2022-10-25, CVE-2022-39350)

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>