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Misinterpretation of malicious XML input

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Mar 9, 2021 in xmldom/xmldom • Updated Feb 2, 2023

Package

npm xmldom (npm)

Affected versions

< 0.5.0

Patched versions

0.5.0

Description

Impact

xmldom versions 0.4.0 and older do not correctly preserve system identifiers, FPIs or namespaces when repeatedly parsing and serializing maliciously crafted documents.

This may lead to unexpected syntactic changes during XML processing in some downstream applications.

Patches

Update to 0.5.0 (once it is released)

Workarounds

Downstream applications can validate the input and reject the maliciously crafted documents.

References

Similar to this one reported on the Go standard library:

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

  • Open an issue in xmldom/xmldom
  • Email us: send an email to all addresses that are shown by npm owner ls xmldom

References

@brodycj brodycj published to xmldom/xmldom Mar 9, 2021
Reviewed Mar 12, 2021
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Mar 12, 2021
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Mar 12, 2021
Last updated Feb 2, 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
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
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:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N

EPSS score

0.300%
(70th percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2021-21366

GHSA ID

GHSA-h6q6-9hqw-rwfv

Source code

Credits

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