CVE-2024-56412

# Bypass XSS sanitizer using the javascript protocol and special characters **Product**: Phpspreadsheet **Version**: version 3.6.0 **CWE-ID**: CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') **CVSS vector v.3.1**: 5.4 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N) **CVSS vector v.4.0**: 4.8 (AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:A/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N) **Description**: an attacker can use special characters, so that the library processes the javascript protocol with special characters and generates an HTML link **Impact**: executing arbitrary JavaScript code in the browser **Vulnerable component**: class `PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Writer\Html`, method `generateRow` **Exploitation conditions**: a user viewing a specially generated Excel file **Mitigation**: additional sanitization of special characters in a string **Researcher**: Aleksey Solovev (Positive Technologies) # Research The researcher discovered zero-day vulnerability Bypass XSS sanitizer using the javascript protocol and special characters in Phpspreadsheet. The following code is written on the server, which translates the XLSX file into a HTML representation and displays it in the response. *Listing 6. Source code on the server* ``` <?php require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php'; $inputFileName = './doc/Book1.xlsx'; $spreadsheet = \PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\IOFactory::load($inputFileName); $writer = new \PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Writer\Html($spreadsheet); print($writer->generateHTMLAll()); ``` An attacker can use special characters so that this library processes the javascript protocol with special characters and generates a HTML link. The Excel file is unpacked and a hyperlink in the file is inserted into the `xl/worksheets/sheet1.xml` file.  *Figure 11. Using the javascript protocol with special characters* Some payloads help bypass the security system and carry out a XSS attack. *Listing 7. HTML form that demonstrates the exploitation of the XSS vulnerability* ``` jav&#x09;ascript:alert() jav&#x0D;ascript:alert() jav&#x0A;ascript:alert() ``` It's clear that the javascript protocol with special characters is used.  *Figure 12. Using the javascript protocol with special characters* Due to the special characters, the execution stream ends up on line 1543, and the link is built in HTML form with the javascript protocol. <img width="373" alt="fig13" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/3ca0c3c6-daa9-4502-ad9e-b803f308fd26" /> *Figure 13. Executing arbitrary JavaScript code* # Credit This vulnerability was discovered by **Aleksey Solovev (Positive Technologies)**