TechDocs content sanitization bypass
Description
Backstage is an open platform for building developer portals, and techdocs-common contains common functionalities for Backstage's TechDocs. In versions of @backstage/tehdocs-common prior to 0.6.4, a malicious internal actor is able to upload documentation content with malicious scripts. These scripts would normally be sanitized by the TechDocs frontend, but by tricking a user to visit the content via the TechDocs API, the content sanitazion will be bypassed. If the TechDocs API is hosted on the same origin as the Backstage app or other backend plugins, this may give access to sensitive data. The ability to upload malicious content may be limited by internal code review processes, unless the chosen TechDocs deployment method is to use an object store and the actor has access to upload files directly to that store. The vulnerability is patched in the 0.6.4 release of @backstage/techdocs-common.
Affected packages
Versions sourced from the GitHub Security Advisory.
| Package | Affected versions | Patched versions |
|---|---|---|
@backstage/techdocs-commonnpm | < 0.6.4 | 0.6.4 |
Affected products
1Patches
1aad98c544e59Initial changeset.
2 files changed · +7 −0
.changeset/techdocs-fresh-and-clean.md+6 −0 added@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ +--- +'@backstage/techdocs-common': patch +'@backstage/plugin-techdocs': patch +--- + +Fixes multiple XSS and sanitization bypass vulnerabilities in TechDocs. For details, see [ link to security advisories here ] ...
.github/styles/vocab.txt+1 −0 modified@@ -210,6 +210,7 @@ rst rsync ruleset sam +sanitization scaffolded scaffolder Scaffolder
Vulnerability mechanics
Generated by null/stub on May 9, 2026. Inputs: CWE entries + fix-commit diffs from this CVE's patches. Citations validated against bundle.
References
5- github.com/advisories/GHSA-pwhf-39xg-4rxwghsaADVISORY
- nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-32660ghsaADVISORY
- github.com/backstage/backstage/commit/aad98c544e59369901fe9e0a85f6357644dceb5cghsax_refsource_MISCWEB
- github.com/backstage/backstage/releases/tag/release-2021-06-03ghsax_refsource_MISCWEB
- github.com/backstage/backstage/security/advisories/GHSA-pwhf-39xg-4rxwghsax_refsource_CONFIRMWEB
News mentions
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