CVE-2024-45812

low-risk
Published 2024-09-17

Vite a frontend build tooling framework for javascript. Affected versions of vite were discovered to contain a DOM Clobbering vulnerability when building scripts to `cjs`/`iife`/`umd` output format. The DOM Clobbering gadget in the module can lead to cross-site scripting (XSS) in web pages where scriptless attacker-controlled HTML elements (e.g., an img tag with an unsanitized name attribute) are present. DOM Clobbering is a type of code-reuse attack where the attacker first embeds a piece of non-script, seemingly benign HTML markups in the webpage (e.g. through a post or comment) and leverages the gadgets (pieces of js code) living in the existing javascript code to transform it into executable code. We have identified a DOM Clobbering vulnerability in Vite bundled scripts, particularly when the scripts dynamically import other scripts from the assets folder and the developer sets the build output format to `cjs`, `iife`, or `umd`. In such cases, Vite replaces relative paths starting with `__VITE_ASSET__` using the URL retrieved from `document.currentScript`. However, this implementation is vulnerable to a DOM Clobbering attack. The `document.currentScript` lookup can be shadowed by an attacker via the browser's named DOM tree element access mechanism. This manipulation allows an attacker to replace the intended script element with a malicious HTML element. When this happens, the src attribute of the attacker-controlled element is used as the URL for importing scripts, potentially leading to the dynamic loading of scripts from an attacker-controlled server. This vulnerability can result in cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks on websites that include Vite-bundled files (configured with an output format of `cjs`, `iife`, or `umd`) and allow users to inject certain scriptless HTML tags without properly sanitizing the name or id attributes. This issue has been patched in versions 5.4.6, 5.3.6, 5.2.14, 4.5.5, and 3.2.11. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

Do I need to act?

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0.26% chance of exploitation
EPSS score — low exploit probability
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Not on CISA KEV list
No confirmed active exploitation reported to CISA
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Patch status unknown
Check vendor advisories for fix availability and mitigation guidance
6
CVSS 6.4/10 Medium
NETWORK / HIGH complexity
26
/ 100
low-risk
Severity 20/34 · Moderate
Exploitability 1/34 · Minimal
Exposure 5/34 · Minimal