CVE-2024-20504

A vulnerability in the web-based management interface of Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager, Secure Email Gateway, and Secure Web Appliance could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to conduct a stored cross-site scripting (XSS) attack against a user of the interface.

This vulnerability is due to insufficient validation of user input. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by persuading a user of an affected interface to click a crafted link. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary script code in the context of the affected interface or access sensitive, browser-based information.

Weakness

The product receives input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special characters such as “<”, “>”, and “&” that could be interpreted as web-scripting elements when they are sent to a downstream component that processes web pages.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• 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.

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/18.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/193.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/32.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/86.html

References

• https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-esa-wsa-sma-xss-zYm3f49n