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Cross-site Scripting occurrences in Yellowfin Bi
Yellowfin Smart Reporting All Versions Prior to 7.3 is affected by: Incorrect Access Control - Privileges Escalation. The impact is: Victim attacked and access admin functionality through their browser and control browser. The component is: MIAdminStyles.i4. The attack vector is: Victims are typically lured to a web site under the attacker's control; the XSS vulnerability on the target domain is silently exploited without the victim's knowledge. The fixed version is: 7.4 and later. (2019-07-26, CVE-2019-1010147)
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>