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Atomicorp WAF Research Note: CVE-2021-29460

Kirby CMS 3.5.3.1 - ‘file’ Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

CVE Details

Status: Attack Blocked by Atomicorp
Technical CPE data

This section lists vulnerable CPE matches retained from the NVD configurations. It supplements the readable affected-product information above.

  • cpe:2.3:a:getkirby:kirby:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
    • Version end (exclusive): 3.5.4
    • NVD match criteria ID: F6D1B4A2-1BAE-4A15-9904-5229E7632479

Vulnerability Description

Kirby is an open source CMS. An editor with write access to the Kirby Panel can upload an SVG file that contains harmful content like <script> tags. The direct link to that file can be sent to other users or visitors of the site. If the victim opens that link in a browser where they are logged in to Kirby, the script will run and can for example trigger requests to Kirby’s API with the permissions of the victim. This vulnerability is critical if you might have potential attackers in your group of authenticated Panel users, as they can escalate their privileges if they get access to the Panel session of an admin user. Depending on your site, other JavaScript-powered attacks are possible. Visitors without Panel access can only use this attack vector if your site allows SVG file uploads in frontend forms and you don’t already sanitize uploaded SVG files. The problem has been patched in Kirby 3.5.4. Please update to this or a later version to fix the vulnerability. Frontend upload forms need to be patched separately depending on how they store the uploaded file(s). If you use File::create(), you are protected by updating to 3.5.4+. As a work around you can disable the upload of SVG files in your file blueprints.

  1. Maintain the observed Atomicorp protections. Keep your Atomicorp commercial rules current and confirm that the selected observed rules (330791 , 340152 ) have not been locally disabled. Atomicorp commercial rules are enabled by default. If you use Atomic WAF, review the applicable policy and rule settings.

  2. Apply the vendor’s remediation. WAF protection is defense in depth and does not replace upgrading or following the affected vendor’s guidance.

  3. Validate after changes. Confirm rule updates are current, review WAF events for the affected application, and test application behavior after vendor upgrades, mitigations, or local policy changes.

Research Notes

Atomicorp WAF protections are designed around attack techniques and exploit behaviors, allowing existing protections to apply across multiple vulnerabilities without requiring a unique rule for every CVE.

Public Vulnerability References

Test or Research Source

Research Note Context

This research note documents exploit-technique analysis associated with this vulnerability and references Atomicorp WAF protections observed during engineering review, testing, or validation activities.

Atomicorp security controls are generally designed to identify and mitigate attack techniques and exploit behaviors rather than individual CVE identifiers. As a result, protections developed for one vulnerability may also apply to related attack variants and future vulnerabilities using similar techniques.

Learn More

Atomicorp develops commercially supported security technologies for web applications, servers, endpoints, workloads, and legacy enterprise platforms.

Organizations interested in protecting systems against exploit techniques associated with vulnerabilities such as this one can learn more about:

  • Atomic ModSecurity Rules: commercially maintained WAF rules for ModSecurity deployments, including protections for web attacks, bots, scanners, malware, exploitation attempts, and emerging vulnerability classes.
  • Atomic WAF: an enterprise web application firewall with Atomicorp rules, centralized management, reporting, authentication controls, and operational tooling.
  • Atomic ModSecurity Integrator: a special licensing option for MSPs, MSSPs, OEMs, VARs, reverse proxy providers, and other integrators who want to incorporate Atomicorp ModSecurity rule technology into their own products or services.
  • Atomic OSSEC: an enterprise OSSEC-based intrusion detection, compliance, and security monitoring platform.
  • Atomic Protector: workload protection for Linux, web, cloud, data center, and hybrid environments.

For additional information, product evaluations, or technical discussions, visit https://www.atomicorp.com/ or https://modsecurity.io/ .