There is a potential cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability that can be exploited via maliciously crafted user data.
The reason these issues were not detected before is the escapes were working as designed. However, their design didn't take into account just how recklessly permissive browser are when it comes to executing unsafe JavaScript via HTML attributes.
Impact
If you render an <a> tag with an href attribute set to a user-provided link, that link could potentially execute JavaScript when clicked by another user.
a(href: user_profile) { "Profile" }If you splat user-provided attributes when rendering any HTML or SVG tag, malicious event attributes could be included in the output, executing JavaScript when the events are triggered by another user.
h1(**JSON.parse(user_attributes))
Patches
Patches are available on RubyGems for all minor versions released in the last year.
If you are on main, it has been patched since da8f943
Workarounds
Configuring a Content Security Policy that does not allow unsafe-inline would effectively prevent this vulnerability from being exploited.
References
In addition to upgrading to a patched version of Phlex, we strongly recommend configuring a Content Security Policy header that does not allow unsafe-inline. Here’s how you can configure a Content Security Policy header in Rails. https://guides.rubyonrails.org/security.html#content-security-policy-header
References
joeldrapper Other
There is a potential cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability that can be exploited via maliciously crafted user data.
The reason these issues were not detected before is the escapes were working as designed. However, their design didn't take into account just how recklessly permissive browser are when it comes to executing unsafe JavaScript via HTML attributes.
Impact
If you render an
<a>tag with anhrefattribute set to a user-provided link, that link could potentially execute JavaScript when clicked by another user.If you splat user-provided attributes when rendering any HTML or SVG tag, malicious event attributes could be included in the output, executing JavaScript when the events are triggered by another user.
Patches
Patches are available on RubyGems for all minor versions released in the last year.
If you are on
main, it has been patched sinceda8f943Workarounds
Configuring a Content Security Policy that does not allow
unsafe-inlinewould effectively prevent this vulnerability from being exploited.References
In addition to upgrading to a patched version of Phlex, we strongly recommend configuring a Content Security Policy header that does not allow
unsafe-inline. Here’s how you can configure a Content Security Policy header in Rails. https://guides.rubyonrails.org/security.html#content-security-policy-headerReferences