CVE-2021-21283
January 26, 2021
Flarum is an open source discussion platform for websites. The "Flarum Sticky" extension versions 0.1.0-beta.14 and 0.1.0-beta.15 has a cross-site scripting vulnerability. A change in release beta 14 of the Sticky extension caused the plain text content of the first post of a pinned discussion to be injected as HTML on the discussion list. The issue was discovered following an internal audit. Any HTML would be injected through the m.trust() helper. This resulted in an HTML injection where <script> tags would not be executed. However it was possible to run javascript from other HTML attributes, enabling a cross-site scripting (XSS) attack to be performed. Since the exploit only happens with the first post of a pinned discussion, an attacker would need the ability to pin their own discussion, or be able to edit a discussion that was previously pinned. On forums where all pinned posts are authored by your staff, you can be relatively certain the vulnerability has not been exploited. Forums where some user-created discussions were pinned can look at the first post edit date to find whether the vulnerability might have been exploited. Because Flarum doesn't store the post content history, you cannot be certain if a malicious edit was reverted. The fix will be available in version v0.1.0-beta.16 with Flarum beta 16. The fix has already been back-ported to Flarum beta 15 as version v0.1.0-beta.15.1 of the Sticky extension. Forum administrators can disable the Sticky extension until they are able to apply the update. The vulnerability cannot be exploited while the extension is disabled.
Related Resources (6)
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Contact UsCVSS v4
Base Score:
5.1
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Attack Requirements
NONE
Privileges Required
LOW
User Interaction
PASSIVE
Vulnerable System Confidentiality
LOW
Vulnerable System Integrity
LOW
Vulnerable System Availability
NONE
Subsequent System Confidentiality
LOW
Subsequent System Integrity
LOW
Subsequent System Availability
NONE
CVSS v3
Base Score:
5.4
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
LOW
User Interaction
REQUIRED
Scope
CHANGED
Confidentiality
LOW
Integrity
LOW
Availability
NONE
CVSS v2
Base Score:
3.5
Access Vector
NETWORK
Access Complexity
MEDIUM
Authentication
SINGLE
Confidentiality Impact
NONE
Integrity Impact
PARTIAL
Availability Impact
NONE
Weakness Type (CWE)
Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
EPSS
Base Score:
0.35