This article is a part of our Vulnerability Database (back to index)
Cross-site Scripting occurrences in Next-auth
NextAuth.js is a complete open source authentication solution for Next.js applications. An attacker can pass a compromised input to the e-mail [signin endpoint](https://next-auth.js.org/getting-started/rest-api#post-apiauthsigninprovider) that contains some malicious HTML, tricking the e-mail server to send it to the user, so they can perform a phishing attack. Eg.: `balazs@email.com, Before signing in, claim your money!`. This was previously sent to `balazs@email.com`, and the content of the email containing a link to the attacker's site was rendered in the HTML. This has been remedied in the following releases, by simply not rendering that e-mail in the HTML, since it should be obvious to the receiver what e-mail they used: next-auth v3 users before version 3.29.8 are impacted. (We recommend upgrading to v4, as v3 is considered unmaintained. next-auth v4 users before version 4.9.0 are impacted. If for some reason you cannot upgrade, the workaround requires you to sanitize the `email` parameter that is passed to `sendVerificationRequest` and rendered in the HTML. If you haven't created a custom `sendVerificationRequest`, you only need to upgrade. Otherwise, make sure to either exclude `email` from the HTML body or efficiently sanitize it. (2022-07-06, CVE-2022-31127)
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>