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Cross-site Scripting occurrences in Rails
A vulnerability classified as problematic has been found in Ruby on Rails. This affects an unknown part of the file actionpack/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/templates/routes/_table.html.erb. The manipulation leads to cross site scripting. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. The name of the patch is be177e4566747b73ff63fd5f529fab564e475ed4. It is recommended to apply a patch to fix this issue. The associated identifier of this vulnerability is VDB-212319. (2022-10-26, CVE-2022-3704)
In actionpack gem >= 6.0.0, a possible XSS vulnerability exists when an application is running in development mode allowing an attacker to send or embed (in another page) a specially crafted URL which can allow the attacker to execute JavaScript in the context of the local application. This vulnerability is in the Actionable Exceptions middleware. (2021-01-06, CVE-2020-8264)
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>