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Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

CVE-2021-32670

Severity Medium
Score 6.1/10

Summary

Datasette is an open source multi-tool for exploring and publishing data. The `?_trace=1` debugging feature in Datasette does not correctly escape generated HTML, resulting in a [reflected cross-site scripting](https://owasp.org/www-community/attacks/xss/#reflected-xss-attacks) vulnerability. This vulnerability is particularly relevant if your Datasette installation includes authenticated features using plugins such as [datasette-auth-passwords](https://datasette.io/plugins/datasette-auth-passwords) as an attacker could use the vulnerability to access protected data. Datasette 0.57 and 0.56.1 both include patches for this issue. If you run Datasette behind a proxy you can workaround this issue by rejecting any incoming requests with `?_trace=` or `&_trace=` in their query string parameters.

  • LOW
  • NETWORK
  • LOW
  • CHANGED
  • REQUIRED
  • NONE
  • LOW
  • NONE

CWE-79 - Cross Site Scripting

Cross-Site Scripting, commonly referred to as XSS, is the most dominant class of vulnerabilities. It allows an attacker to inject malicious code into a pregnable web application and victimize its users. The exploitation of such a weakness can cause severe issues such as account takeover, and sensitive data exfiltration. Because of the prevalence of XSS vulnerabilities and their high rate of exploitation, it has remained in the OWASP top 10 vulnerabilities for years.

Advisory Timeline

  • Published