GHSA-3w28-36p9-w929
Gogs's Unauthenticated Jupyter Notebook (ipynb) Sanitizer allows arbitrary data: URIs leading to XSS
Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Go | gogs.io/gogs | < 0.14.3 | 0.14.3 |
Details
As written in the advisory (Markdown source, shown as plain text).
## Summary
The Jupyter Notebook (ipynb) sanitizer endpoint at `POST /-/api/sanitize_ipynb` allows arbitrary `data:` URIs without proper restrictions, potentially leading to Cross-Site Scripting (XSS). The endpoint uses `bluemonday.UGCPolicy()` with `p.AllowURLSchemes("data")` which permits all data URI schemes including `data:text/html`, enabling attackers to inject malicious HTML/JavaScript. Additionally, the endpoint has no authentication middleware, allowing any registered user to exploit this vulnerability.
## Severity
**High**
## Affected Versions
All versions using the vulnerable endpoint
## Vulnerability Details
- **CVE ID**: (To be assigned)
- **Entry Point**: `POST /-/api/sanitize_ipynb`
- **Attack Vector**: Network
- **Authentication Required**: No (only needs a registered user account)
## Impact
An attacker with a registered user account can:
- Send malicious HTML containing `data:text/html` URIs to the sanitization endpoint
- Receive sanitized but attacker-controlled HTML in the response
- Execute arbitrary JavaScript in the attacker's browser context through XSS
- Potentially exploit other users if the sanitized output is rendered in their context
The vulnerability has higher severity because:
1. No authentication required (only needs a registered user account)
2. Unlike the safer pattern in `internal/markup/sanitizer.go:39` which uses `isSafeDataURI` to only allow safe image MIME types, this endpoint allows ALL data URIs including HTML
3. The returned HTML can be used to craft XSS attacks
## Proof of Concept
Attacker sends a POST request to the sanitization endpoint:
```http
POST /-/api/sanitize_ipynb HTTP/1.1
Host: target.gogs.instance
Content-Type: text/plain
<a href="data:text/html,<script>alert(document.cookie)</script>">click</a>
```
The server returns the sanitized HTML with the data URI preserved:
```html
<a href="data:text/html,<script>alert(document.cookie)</script>">click</a>
```
When this HTML is rendered in a browser, the JavaScript within the data URI will execute, leading to XSS.
## Affected Component
**File**: `internal/app/api.go:10-16`
```go
func ipynbSanitizer() *bluemonday.Policy {
p := bluemonday.UGCPolicy()
p.AllowAttrs("class", "data-prompt-number").OnElements("div")
p.AllowAttrs("class").OnElements("img")
p.AllowURLSchemes("data") // <-- VULNERABLE: allows all data URIs
return p
}
```
**File**: `cmd/gogs/web.go:681-683` - No authentication middleware
```go
m.Group("/-", func() {
m.Get("/metrics", app.MetricsFilter(), promhttp.Handler())
m.Group("/api", func() {
m.Post("/sanitize_ipynb", app.SanitizeIpynb()) // <-- No auth middleware
})
})
```
## Root Cause
1. **Unrestricted data URI scheme**: The code at `internal/app/api.go:14` uses `p.AllowURLSchemes("data")` without any restriction, unlike the safer implementation in `internal/markup/sanitizer.go:39` which uses `AllowURLSchemeWithCustomPolicy("data", isSafeDataURI)` to only allow safe image MIME types.
2. **No authentication**: The endpoint at `cmd/gogs/web.go:682` does not have any authentication middleware applied, making it accessible to any registered user.
3. **Insufficient validation**: The sanitization only removes dangerous tags/attributes but preserves data URIs, allowing `data:text/html` payloads to pass through.
## Suggested Fix
**Option 1**: Use the same safe pattern as `internal/markup/sanitizer.go`
Replace `p.AllowURLSchemes("data")` with:
```go
p.AllowURLSchemeWithCustomPolicy("data", isSafeDataURI)
```
Where `isSafeDataURI` is a function that only allows safe image MIME types (image/png, image/jpeg, image/gif, etc.).
**Option 2**: Add authentication middleware
Apply appropriate authentication to the endpoint:
```go
m.Post("/sanitize_ipynb", middleware.signIn, app.SanitizeIpynb())
```
**Option 3**: Disable data URI scheme entirely
If data URIs are not required for ipynb sanitization:
```go
// Remove this line entirely:
// p.AllowURLSchemes("data")
```
References
External links from the advisory. They lead to third-party sites.
- https://github.com/gogs/gogs/security/advisories/GHSA-3w28-36p9-w929
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-52816
- https://github.com/gogs/gogs/pull/8326
- https://github.com/gogs/gogs/commit/dd1bd9837aa196b3ed3a8ee21e5727b5d7a986a3
- https://github.com/gogs/gogs
- https://github.com/gogs/gogs/releases/tag/v0.14.3