CVE-2019-10227

Step 1: Craft the Malicious URL: The attacker crafts a URL that includes a malicious JavaScript payload within the URL path, targeting the 404-not-found component. For example: https://vulnerable.example.com/nonexistent/<script>alert('XSS')</script>

Step 2: User Interaction: The attacker tricks a user into clicking the malicious URL, perhaps through phishing or social engineering.

Step 3: Server Response: The openITCOCKPIT server receives the request for the non-existent page.

Step 4: Vulnerable Component Execution: The 404-not-found component processes the request and, due to the vulnerability, reflects the unsanitized URL path, including the malicious JavaScript payload, back to the user's browser within the HTML response.

Step 5: Browser Execution: The user's browser renders the HTML response, executing the injected JavaScript payload within the context of the openITCOCKPIT domain. This allows the attacker to perform actions as the logged-in user, such as stealing cookies, redirecting the user to a phishing site, or modifying the content of the page.

The vulnerability stems from insufficient input sanitization and output encoding within the 404-not-found component of openITCOCKPIT. When a user navigates to a non-existent page, the application fails to properly sanitize user-supplied data, specifically the URL path. This unsanitized input is then reflected back to the user's browser within the HTML response, allowing an attacker to inject arbitrary JavaScript code. The root cause is a lack of proper input validation and output encoding (e.g., HTML escaping) of user-provided data before it's rendered in the browser. This allows for the execution of malicious scripts within the context of the vulnerable application.