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Cross-site Scripting in wagtail

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Jun 17, 2021 in wagtail/wagtail • Updated Feb 1, 2023

Package

pip wagtail (pip)

Affected versions

< 2.11.8
>= 2.12, < 2.12.5
>= 2.13, < 2.13.2

Patched versions

2.11.8
2.12.5
2.13.2

Description

Impact

When the {% include_block %} template tag is used to output the value of a plain-text StreamField block (CharBlock, TextBlock or a similar user-defined block derived from FieldBlock), and that block does not specify a template for rendering, the tag output is not properly escaped as HTML. This could allow users to insert arbitrary HTML or scripting. This vulnerability is only exploitable by users with the ability to author StreamField content (i.e. users with 'editor' access to the Wagtail admin).

Patches

Patched versions have been released as Wagtail 2.11.8 (for the LTS 2.11 branch), Wagtail 2.12.5, and Wagtail 2.13.2 (for the current 2.13 branch).

Site implementors who wish to retain the existing behaviour of allowing editors to insert HTML content in these blocks (and are willing to accept the risk of untrusted editors inserting arbitrary code) may disable the escaping by surrounding the relevant {% include_block %} tag in {% autoescape off %}...{% endautoescape %}.

Workarounds

Site implementors who are unable to upgrade to a current supported version should audit their use of {% include_block %} to ensure it is not used to output CharBlock / TextBlock values with no associated template. Note that this only applies where {% include_block %} is used directly on that block (uses of include_block on a block containing a CharBlock / TextBlock, such as a StructBlock, are unaffected). In these cases, the tag can be replaced with Django's {{ ... }} syntax - e.g. {% include_block my_title_block %} becomes {{ my_title_block }}.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Karen Tracey for reporting this issue.

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

References

@gasman gasman published to wagtail/wagtail Jun 17, 2021
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Jun 17, 2021
Reviewed Jun 17, 2021
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Jun 17, 2021
Last updated Feb 1, 2023

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
Required
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

EPSS score

0.152%
(52nd percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2021-32681

GHSA ID

GHSA-xfrw-hxr5-ghqf

Source code

No known source code
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