Flarum Cross-site Scripting

Flarum is an open source discussion platform. Flarum's page title system allowed for page titles to be converted into HTML DOM nodes when pages were rendered. The change was made after `v1.5` and was not noticed. This allowed an attacker to inject malicious HTML markup using a discussion title input, either by creating a new discussion or renaming one. The XSS attack occurs after a visitor opens the relevant discussion page. All communities running Flarum from `v1.5.0` to `v1.6.1` are impacted. The vulnerability has been fixed and published as flarum/core `v1.6.2`. All communities running Flarum from `v1.5.0` to `v1.6.1` have to upgrade as soon as possible to v1.6.2. There are no known workarounds for this issue. (2022-11-19, CVE-2022-41938)

Flarum is a forum software for building communities. Flarum's translation system allowed for string inputs to be converted into HTML DOM nodes when rendered. This change was made after v0.1.0-beta.16 (our last beta before v1.0.0) and was not noticed or documented. This allowed for any user to type malicious HTML markup within certain user input fields and have this execute on client browsers. The example which led to the discovery of this vulnerability was in the forum search box. Entering faux-malicious HTML markup, such as resulted in an alert box appearing on the forum. This attack could also be modified to perform AJAX requests on behalf of a user, possibly deleting discussions, modifying their settings or profile, or even modifying settings on the Admin panel if the attack was targetted towards a privileged user. All Flarum communities that run flarum v1.0.0 or v1.0.1 are impacted. The vulnerability has been fixed and published as flarum/core v1.0.2. All communities running Flarum v1.0 have to upgrade as soon as possible to v1.0.2. (2021-06-07, CVE-2021-32671)

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>