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GHSA-crh6-fp67-6883 CVE-2022-39353

xmldom allows multiple root nodes in a DOM

Critical npm
Severity
9.8 / 10
Critical · CVSS 3.1
Exploit chance (EPSS)
1.60%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 75.76% of scored vulnerabilities.
Known exploited
No
Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness
CWE-1288 Improper Validation of Consistency within Input
CWE-20 Improper Input Validation
Fix
0.7.7
Upgrade @xmldom/xmldom to this version or later

Description

Impact

xmldom parses XML that is not well-formed because it contains multiple top level elements, and adds all root nodes to the childNodes collection of the Document, without reporting any error or throwing. This breaks the assumption that there is only a single root node in the tree, which led to https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-39299 and is a potential issue for dependents.

Patches

Update to @xmldom/xmldom@~0.7.7, @xmldom/xmldom@~0.8.4 (dist-tag latest) or @xmldom/xmldom@>=0.9.0-beta.4 (dist-tag next).

Workarounds

One of the following approaches might help, depending on your use case:

  • Instead of searching for elements in the whole DOM, only search in the documentElement.
  • Reject a document with a document that has more then 1 childNode.

References

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

Affected versions

npm

PackageVulnerableFixed in
@xmldom/xmldom
< 0.7.7
0.7.7
@xmldom/xmldom
>= 0.8.0, < 0.8.4
0.8.4
@xmldom/xmldom
>= 0.9.0-beta.1, < 0.9.0-beta.4
0.9.0-beta.4
xmldom
<= 0.6.0
 No fix yet

How to fix

Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.

@xmldom/xmldom npm → 0.7.7

npm
npm install @xmldom/xmldom@0.7.7
yarn
yarn add @xmldom/xmldom@0.7.7
pnpm
pnpm add @xmldom/xmldom@0.7.7

Severity breakdown

CVSS 3.1 9.8

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

Weakness

CWE-1288: Improper Validation of Consistency within Input

The product receives a complex input with multiple elements or fields that must be consistent with each other, but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input is actually consistent.

How to prevent it
  • Implementation: Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does. When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full range of acceptable values, missing or extra inputs, syntax, consistency across related fields, and conformance to business rules. As an example of business rule logic, "boat" may be syntactically valid because it only contains alphanumeric characters, but it is not valid if the input is only expected to contain colors such as "red" or "blue." Do not rely exclusively on looking for malicious or malformed inputs. This is likely to miss at least one undesirable input, especially if the code's environment changes. This can give attackers enough room to bypass the intended validation. However, denylists can be useful for detecting potential attacks or determining which inputs are so malformed that they should be rejected outright.

CWE-20: Improper Input Validation

The product receives input or data, but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input has the properties that are required to process the data safely and correctly.

How to prevent it
  • Architecture and Design: Consider using language-theoretic security (LangSec) techniques that characterize inputs using a formal language and build "recognizers" for that language. This effectively requires parsing to be a distinct layer that effectively enforces a boundary between raw input and internal data representations, instead of allowing parser code to be scattered throughout the program, where it could be subject to errors or inconsistencies that create weaknesses. [REF-1109] [REF-1110] [REF-1111]
  • Architecture and Design: Use an input validation framework such as Struts or the OWASP ESAPI Validation API. Note that using a framework does not automatically address all input validation problems; be mindful of weaknesses that could arise from misusing the framework itself (CWE-1173).
  • Architecture and Design, Implementation: Understand all the potential areas where untrusted inputs can enter the product, including but not limited to: parameters or arguments, cookies, anything read from the network, environment variables, reverse DNS lookups, query results, request headers, URL components, e-mail, files, filenames, databases, and any external systems that provide data to the application. Remember that such inputs may be obtained indirectly through API calls.
  • Implementation: Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does. When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full range of acceptable values, missing or extra inputs, syntax, consistency across related fields, and conformance to business rules. As an example of business rule logic, "boat" may be syntactically valid because it only contains alphanumeric characters, but it is not valid if the input is only expected to contain colors such as "red" or "blue." Do not rely exclusively on looking for malicious or malformed inputs. This is likely to miss at least one undesirable input, especially if the code's environment changes. This can give attackers enough room to bypass the intended validation. However, denylists can be useful for detecting potential attacks or determining which inputs are so malformed that they should be rejected outright.
  • Architecture and Design: For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side, in order to avoid CWE-602. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks entirely. Then, these modified values would be submitted to the server. Even though client-side checks provide minimal benefits with respect to server-side security, they are still useful. First, they can support intrusion detection. If the server receives input that should have been rejected by the client, then it may be an indication of an attack. Second, client-side error-checking can provide helpful feedback to the user about the expectations for valid input. Third, there may be a reduction in server-side processing time for accidental input errors, although this is typically a small savings.
  • Implementation: When your application combines data from multiple sources, perform the validation after the sources have been combined. The individual data elements may pass the validation step but violate the intended restrictions after they have been combined.
  • Implementation: Be especially careful to validate all input when invoking code that crosses language boundaries, such as from an interpreted language to native code. This could create an unexpected interaction between the language boundaries. Ensure that you are not violating any of the expectations of the language with which you are interfacing. For example, even though Java may not be susceptible to buffer overflows, providing a large argument in a call to native code might trigger an overflow.
  • Implementation: Directly convert your input type into the expected data type, such as using a conversion function that translates a string into a number. After converting to the expected data type, ensure that the input's values fall within the expected range of allowable values and that multi-field consistencies are maintained.
  • Implementation: Inputs should be decoded and canonicalized to the application's current internal representation before being validated (CWE-180, CWE-181). Make sure that your application does not inadvertently decode the same input twice (CWE-174). Such errors could be used to bypass allowlist schemes by introducing dangerous inputs after they have been checked. Use libraries such as the OWASP ESAPI Canonicalization control. Consider performing repeated canonicalization until your input does not change any more. This will avoid double-decoding and similar scenarios, but it might inadvertently modify inputs that are allowed to contain properly-encoded dangerous content.
  • Implementation: When exchanging data between components, ensure that both components are using the same character encoding. Ensure that the proper encoding is applied at each interface. Explicitly set the encoding you are using whenever the protocol allows you to do so.

References

Advisories

Packages

Other links

Timeline

  1. Published
  2. Last updated by the source
  3. Latest EPSS score
AdvisorySeverityWhy it's related
GHSA-x4fp-j954-r2f4
xmldom: End-tag Whitespace-Trim Regex ReDoS — quadratic backtracking in the 0.8.x end-tag parser
High Also affects @xmldom/xmldom
GHSA-vr34-hp96-76pp
xmldom: requireWellFormed DocType publicId/systemId validation is bypassable via an embedded line terminator
High Also affects @xmldom/xmldom
GHSA-jxjr-3g7g-3944
xmldom: requireWellFormed element/attribute name validation is bypassable via an embedded line terminator
High Also affects @xmldom/xmldom
GHSA-c7q8-3ch8-vqpv
xmldom: Processing Instruction Target Injection Bypasses requireWellFormed
High Also affects xmldom
GHSA-965w-775f-mr7g
xmldom: Quadratic-memory consumption
High Also affects xmldom
GHSA-93r5-fhx6-vmg9
xmldom: Quadratic-time parsing via the malformed-input recovery path — `parseElementStartPart` re-scan and `normalize()` adjacent-text merge
High Also affects xmldom
GHSA-8344-3jmq-59r6
xmldom: Quadratic-time attribute deduplication
High Also affects xmldom
GHSA-6mj3-qw4j-hgrw
xmldom: HTML raw-text closing-tag case mismatch causes output amplification
High Also affects @xmldom/xmldom
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