GHSA-wv23-996v-q229 CVE-2024-56410

PhpSpreadsheet has a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in custom properties

Medium Packagist

Severity: 0.0 / 10; Medium · CVSS 4.0
Exploit chance (EPSS): 0.34%; Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 27.14% of scored vulnerabilities.
Known exploited: No; Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness: CWE-79 Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
Fix: 3.7.0; Upgrade phpoffice/phpspreadsheet to this version or later

Description

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in custom properties

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: the HTML page is generated without clearing custom properties Impact: executing arbitrary JavaScript code in the browser Vulnerable component: class PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Writer\Html, method generateMeta 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 Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in custom properties 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 9. 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 embed a payload in a file property that will result in the execution of arbitrary JavaScript code. The Excel file is unpacked and a custom property in the file is inserted into the docProps/custom.xml file.

fig17

Figure 17. Embedding the payload

After making the changes, a new archive with the xlsx extension was created. At the moment of converting the xlsx file into an HTML representation, a property is obtained that participates in the formation of a string without sanitization.

fig18

Figure 18. Getting a custom property

When calling the static generateMeta method, you can see that the key of the custom property is displayed without sanitization.

fig19

Figure 19. Getting a custom property

As a result, when viewing the excel file as the HTML representation, arbitrary JavaScript code will be executed.

Figure 20. Executing arbitrary JavaScript code

Credit

This vulnerability was discovered by Aleksey Solovev (Positive Technologies)

Affected versions

Packagist

Package	Vulnerable	Fixed in
phpoffice/phpexcel	`<= 1.8.2`	No fix yet
phpoffice/phpspreadsheet	`>= 3.0.0, < 3.7.0`	`3.7.0`
phpoffice/phpspreadsheet	`< 1.29.7`	`1.29.7`
phpoffice/phpspreadsheet	`>= 2.0.0, < 2.1.6`	`2.1.6`
phpoffice/phpspreadsheet	`>= 2.2.0, < 2.3.5`	`2.3.5`

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.

phpoffice/phpspreadsheet Packagist → `3.7.0`

composer

composer require phpoffice/phpspreadsheet:^3.7.0

Severity breakdown

CVSS 4.0 0.0

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:A/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N

Attack vector: Network
Attack complexity: Low
Attack requirements: None
Privileges required: Low
User interaction: Active
Confidentiality (vulnerable system): Low
Integrity (vulnerable system): Low
Availability (vulnerable system): None
Confidentiality (subsequent systems): Low
Integrity (subsequent systems): Low
Availability (subsequent systems): None

CVSS 3.1 5.4

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

Attack vector: Network
Attack complexity: Low
Privileges required: Low
User interaction: Required
Scope: Changed
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: Low
Availability: None

Weakness

CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

The product does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes user-controllable input before it is placed in output that is used as a web page that is served to other users.

How to prevent it

Architecture and Design: Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid [REF-1482]. Examples of libraries and frameworks that make it easier to generate properly encoded output include Microsoft's Anti-XSS library, the OWASP ESAPI Encoding module, and Apache Wicket.
Implementation, Architecture and Design: Understand the context in which your data will be used and the encoding that will be expected. This is especially important when transmitting data between different components, or when generating outputs that can contain multiple encodings at the same time, such as web pages or multi-part mail messages. Study all expected communication protocols and data representations to determine the required encoding strategies. For any data that will be output to another web page, especially any data that was received from external inputs, use the appropriate encoding on all non-alphanumeric characters. Parts of the same output document may require different encodings, which will vary depending on whether the output is in the: HTML body Element attributes (such as src="XYZ") URIs JavaScript sections Cascading Style Sheets and style property etc. Note that HTML Entity Encoding is only appropriate for the HTML body. Consult the XSS Prevention Cheat Sheet [REF-724] for more details on the types of encoding and escaping that are needed.
Architecture and Design, Implementation: Understand all the potential areas where untrusted inputs can enter your software: 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.
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.
Architecture and Design: If available, use structured mechanisms that automatically enforce the separation between data and code. These mechanisms may be able to provide the relevant quoting, encoding, and validation automatically, instead of relying on the developer to provide this capability at every point where output is generated.
Implementation: Use and specify an output encoding that can be handled by the downstream component that is reading the output. Common encodings include ISO-8859-1, UTF-7, and UTF-8. When an encoding is not specified, a downstream component may choose a different encoding, either by assuming a default encoding or automatically inferring which encoding is being used, which can be erroneous. When the encodings are inconsistent, the downstream component might treat some character or byte sequences as special, even if they are not special in the original encoding. Attackers might then be able to exploit this discrepancy and conduct injection attacks; they even might be able to bypass protection mechanisms that assume the original encoding is also being used by the downstream component. The problem of inconsistent output encodings often arises in web pages. If an encoding is not specified in an HTTP header, web browsers often guess about which encoding is being used. This can open up the browser to subtle XSS attacks.
Implementation: With Struts, write all data from form beans with the bean's filter attribute set to true.
Implementation: To help mitigate XSS attacks against the user's session cookie, set the session cookie to be HttpOnly. In browsers that support the HttpOnly feature (such as more recent versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox), this attribute can prevent the user's session cookie from being accessible to malicious client-side scripts that use document.cookie. This is not a complete solution, since HttpOnly is not supported by all browsers. More importantly, XmlHttpRequest and other powerful browser technologies provide read access to HTTP headers, including the Set-Cookie header in which the HttpOnly flag is set.
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. When dynamically constructing web pages, use stringent allowlists that limit the character set based on the expected value of the parameter in the request. All input should be validated and cleansed, not just parameters that the user is supposed to specify, but all data in the request, including hidden fields, cookies, headers, the URL itself, and so forth. A common mistake that leads to continuing XSS vulnerabilities is to validate only fields that are expected to be redisplayed by the site. It is common to see data from the request that is reflected by the application server or the application that the development team did not anticipate. Also, a field that is not currently reflected may be used by a future developer. Therefore, validating ALL parts of the HTTP request is recommended. Note that proper output encoding, escaping, and quoting is the most ef
Architecture and Design: When the set of acceptable objects, such as filenames or URLs, is limited or known, create a mapping from a set of fixed input values (such as numeric IDs) to the actual filenames or URLs, and reject all other inputs.
Operation: Use an application firewall that can detect attacks against this weakness. It can be beneficial in cases in which the code cannot be fixed (because it is controlled by a third party), as an emergency prevention measure while more comprehensive software assurance measures are applied, or to provide defense in depth [REF-1481].
Operation, Implementation: When using PHP, configure the application so that it does not use register_globals. During implementation, develop the application so that it does not rely on this feature, but be wary of implementing a register_globals emulation that is subject to weaknesses such as CWE-95, CWE-621, and similar issues.

References

Advisories

nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-56410

Packages

github.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet

Timeline

Jan 3, 2025 Published
Jun 17, 2026 Last updated by the source
Oct 31, 2026 Latest EPSS score

Advisory	Severity	Why it's related
GHSA-2phh-27fw-q4gc PhpSpreadsheet: SSRF whitelist bypass via unre-validated HTTP redirect in Drawing::setPath external image loading	Medium	Also affects phpoffice/phpspreadsheet
GHSA-j2w7-387v-m2rq PhpSpreadsheet ODS Reader: Unbounded number-rows-repeated → CPU & Memory Exhaustion (DoS)	High	Also affects phpoffice/phpspreadsheet
GHSA-3x94-m842-937c PhpSpreadsheet: XmlScanner Bypass via ISO-2022 Escape Sequences Allows XXE and Denial of Service	High	Also affects phpoffice/phpspreadsheet
GHSA-rxj4-h86g-25gc PhpSpreadsheet: XmlScanner Bypass via Double-Encoded unentity() TOCTOU Allows XXE and Denial of Service	High	Also affects phpoffice/phpspreadsheet
GHSA-xh5m-36r6-47m3 PHPSpreadsheet: XLS/OLE sector-chain self-loop causes memory exhaustion	High	Also affects phpoffice/phpspreadsheet
GHSA-2mrg-gjxq-2gvr PHPSpreadsheet: Gnumeric reader unbounded gzip expansion causes memory exhaustion	High	Also affects phpoffice/phpspreadsheet
GHSA-6hq5-7373-42rg PHPSpreadsheet: SSRF bypass via HTTP redirect in WEBSERVICE() domain whitelist	High	Also affects phpoffice/phpspreadsheet
GHSA-87m4-826x-3crx PHPSpreadsheet has a patch bypass for CVE-2026-34084	Critical	Also affects phpoffice/phpspreadsheet

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