Elefant CMS Blog Post Persistent cross site scriting

Vulnerability

Overview

CVE-2017-20060 describes a persistent (stored) cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Elefant CMS version 1.3.12-RC. The flaw resides in the Blog Post Handler component, where user-supplied input is not properly sanitized before being stored. This allows an attacker to inject malicious scripts that will be executed later when a victim views the affected blog post.

Attack

Vector

An unauthenticated attacker can exploit this vulnerability remotely by crafting a blog post containing malicious JavaScript code. Since the issue is in a handler that processes blog posts, no special privileges are required to trigger the stored XSS. The attack is as simple as submitting a specially crafted comment or post via the web interface.

Impact

Successful exploitation can lead to execution of arbitrary JavaScript in the context of the victim's browser. This could be used to steal session cookies, redirect users to phishing pages, or perform actions on behalf of the authenticated user, potentially compromising the CMS admin panel and underlying data.

Mitigation

The vendor addressed the vulnerability in Elefant CMS version 1.3.13. Users running 1.3.12-RC are strongly advised to upgrade immediately. No known workarounds have been published, and the vulnerability is not listed in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog as of this publication [1][2].