CVE-2020-26297 XSS in mdBook's search page

What is CVE-2020-26297?

CVE-2020-26297 is a high-severity vulnerability in rust-lang mdBook, published on 4 Jan 2021.

Official description

mdBook is a utility to create modern online books from Markdown files and is written in Rust. In mdBook before version 0.4.5, there is a vulnerability affecting the search feature of mdBook, which could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary JavaScript code on the page. The search feature of mdBook (introduced in version 0.1.4) was affected by a cross site scripting vulnerability that allowed an attacker to execute arbitrary JavaScript code on an user's browser by tricking the user into typing a malicious search query, or tricking the user into clicking a link to the search page with the malicious search query prefilled. mdBook 0.4.5 fixes the vulnerability by properly escaping the search query. Owners of websites built with mdBook have to upgrade to mdBook 0.4.5 or greater and rebuild their website contents with it.

Weakness: CWE-79

Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-26297?

3 open source packages ship an affected version, including mdBook and mdbook. It affects 1 product.

Products include Rust-Lang Mdbook.

How do I fix CVE-2020-26297?

Upgrade mdBook to 0.4.5 or later.

Is CVE-2020-26297 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-26297 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as GHSA-gx5w-rrhp-f436, RUSTSEC-2021-0001.