CVE-2021-22232 in Community Edition
Summary
by MITRE • 07/07/2021
HTML injection was possible via the full name field before versions 13.11.6, 13.12.6, and 14.0.2 in GitLab CE
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/10/2021
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2021-22232 represents a critical html injection flaw in GitLab Community Edition that existed prior to specific version releases. This security weakness allowed attackers to inject malicious html code through the full name field within the application's user interface. The vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation and sanitization mechanisms that failed to properly escape or filter user-supplied data before rendering it in html contexts. Such html injection capabilities can enable adversaries to execute malicious scripts, steal user sessions, or manipulate application behavior through crafted input payloads.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability falls under the category of html injection attacks that are classified as CWE-79 in the Common Weakness Enumeration system. This weakness specifically addresses situations where web applications fail to properly escape html characters in user-controllable data, creating opportunities for cross-site scripting attacks. The vulnerability manifests when user-provided full name information is directly embedded into html documents without appropriate sanitization measures, allowing attackers to inject html tags and javascript code that executes in the context of other users' browsers.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability poses significant risks to GitLab installations and their user communities. Attackers could exploit this weakness to perform session hijacking, steal sensitive information from authenticated users, or manipulate the GitLab interface to redirect users to malicious sites. The impact extends beyond individual user compromise as the vulnerability could be leveraged to affect entire GitLab instances, potentially compromising source code repositories, access controls, and collaborative development workflows. The vulnerability's presence in widely used GitLab versions means that organizations with older installations were exposed to potential exploitation without their knowledge.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2021-22232 primarily focus on immediate software updates to versions 13.11.6, 13.12.6, or 14.0.2 where the html injection vulnerability has been patched. Organizations should implement comprehensive input validation measures that sanitize all user-supplied data before processing, particularly for fields that may be rendered in html contexts. Security teams should also consider implementing content security policies that restrict script execution and prevent unauthorized html injection attempts. Additionally, regular security assessments and code reviews should be conducted to identify similar vulnerabilities in other input fields and application components. The ATT&CK framework categorizes this type of vulnerability under T1059.007 for script injection techniques, highlighting the importance of robust input sanitization and output encoding practices. Organizations should also implement monitoring systems to detect unusual patterns in user input that might indicate attempted exploitation of similar vulnerabilities.