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Cross-site Scripting occurrences in Galette
Galette is a membership management web application built for non profit organizations and released under GPLv3. Versions prior to 0.9.6 are subject to stored cross site scripting attacks via the preferences footer. The preference footer can only be altered by a site admin. This issue has been resolved in the 0.9.6 release and all users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds. (2021-12-16, CVE-2021-41261)
Galette is a membership management web application geared towards non profit organizations. In versions prior to 0.9.5, malicious javascript code can be stored to be displayed later on self subscription page. The self subscription feature can be disabled as a workaround (this is the default state). Malicious javascript code can be executed (not stored) on login and retrieve password pages. This issue is patched in version 0.9.5. (2021-10-25, CVE-2021-21319)
Why Cross-site Scripting can be dangerous
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>