A recent Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability, dubbed CVE-2024-21485, has been discovered affecting several versions of the Dash libraries. The vulnerability impacts the packages dash-core-components and dash-html-components and the main Dash package. A potential attack could lead to unauthorized data access, leaks, and even token stealing. This blog post aims to provide more insights into the vulnerabile versions and details of the exploit. It also includes links to original references, code snippets and possible methods to fixing it.

Exploit Details

The vulnerability exists when the href of the "a" tag is controlled by an adversary. To be exploitable, the Dash app must include a mechanism to store user input and reload it by a different user. An authenticated attacker can store a view that exploits this vulnerability. By opening that view, another user is exposed to a potential data leak, unauthorized access, and even token stealing. This would allow the attacker to act as the targeted user and access other apps and resources hosted on the same server.

Code Snippet

Here is a sample exploit code that demonstrates how the XSS vulnerability in a Dash app can be abused:

import dash
import dash_html_components as html

app = dash.Dash(__name__)

stored_xss_payload = '<script>alert("XSS")</script>' # This payload may be stored in any server-side action by an attacker

app.layout = html.Div([
    html.A(href=stored_xss_payload, children='Click here')
])

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run_server(debug=True)

Here are some of the original references to the CVE-2024-21485 vulnerability

- "Dash Security Updates in Dash v2.17. and Dash Renderer v1.25." - An official announcement detailing the security fixes in the updated versions of Dash.
- CVE-2024-21485 on Cvedetails.com - It provides more information on the vulnerability, like CVSS scores.
- CVE-2024-21485 on NIST NVD - A comprehensive database by the National Institute of Standards and Technology providing further details and impacts on the vulnerability.

To protect your Dash apps from this vulnerability, consider the following steps

- Update your Dash libraries to the latest secure versions. Install the relevant updated packages with pip:

pip install dash-html-components==2..16

`
- Adopt a proper input sanitization and validation approach when handling user-generated content.
- Ensure users have restricted access to application resources based on their role or privileges.

Conclusion:
CVE-2024-21485 is a serious vulnerability affecting Dash apps that can result in unauthorized data access and token stealing. It is essential to use the recommended updated versions of the Dash libraries and implement appropriate security practices to safeguard your applications from this kind of attack.

Timeline

Published on: 02/02/2024 05:15:09 UTC
Last modified on: 03/06/2024 14:15:47 UTC