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Cross-site scripting vulnerability in TinyMCE

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Aug 10, 2020 in tinymce/tinymce • Updated May 22, 2023

Package

npm tinymce (npm)

Affected versions

< 4.9.11
>= 5.0.0, < 5.4.1

Patched versions

4.9.11
5.4.1

Description

Impact

A cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability was discovered in the core parser. The vulnerability allowed arbitrary JavaScript execution when inserting a specially crafted piece of content into the editor via the clipboard or APIs. This impacts all users who are using TinyMCE 4.9.10 or lower and TinyMCE 5.4.0 or lower.

Patches

This vulnerability has been patched in TinyMCE 4.9.11 and 5.4.1 by improved HTML parsing and sanitization logic.

Workarounds

The workarounds available are:

  • upgrade to either TinyMCE 4.9.11 or TinyMCE 5.4.1
    or
  • enable the media plugin, which overrides the default parsing behaviour for iframes
    or
  • add the following workaround to update the parsing schema rules for iframes:

Example: Change the default schema for iframes

setup: function(editor) {
  editor.on('PreInit', function() {
    editor.schema.getSpecialElements()['iframe'] = /</iframe[^>]*>/gi;
  });
}

Acknowledgements

Tiny Technologies would like to thank George Steketee and Chris Davis at Bishop Fox for discovering this vulnerability.

References

https://www.tiny.cloud/docs/release-notes/release-notes54/#securityfixes

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

References

@lnewson lnewson published to tinymce/tinymce Aug 10, 2020
Reviewed Aug 10, 2020
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Aug 11, 2020
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Aug 14, 2020
Last updated May 22, 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
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:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

EPSS score

0.085%
(38th percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2020-12648

GHSA ID

GHSA-vrv8-v4w8-f95h

Source code

Credits

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