This article is a part of our Vulnerability Database (back to index)
Cross-site Scripting occurrences in Prismatic
The Prismatic WordPress plugin before 2.8 does not escape the 'tab' GET parameter before outputting it back in an attribute, leading to a reflected Cross-Site Scripting issue which will be executed in the context of a logged in administrator (2021-07-12, CVE-2021-24409)
The Prismatic WordPress plugin before 2.8 does not sanitise or validate some of its shortcode parameters, allowing users with a role as low as Contributor to set Cross-Site payload in them. A post made by a contributor would still have to be approved by an admin to have the XSS trigger able in the frontend, however, higher privilege users, such as editor could exploit this without the need of approval, and even when the blog disallows the unfiltered_html capability. (2021-07-12, CVE-2021-24408)
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>