CVE-2021-38264 Liferay Portal vulnerable to cross-site scripting (XSS) via the keywords parameter

What is CVE-2021-38264?

CVE-2021-38264 is a medium-severity cross-site scripting vulnerability in Liferay Liferay Portal, published on 2 Mar 2022. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

Official description

Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the Frontend Taglib module in Liferay Portal 7.4.0 and 7.4.1 allows remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML into the management toolbar search via the `keywords` parameter. This issue is caused by an incomplete fix in CVE-2021-35463.

Weakness: CWE-79

Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-38264?

2 open source packages ship an affected version, including com.liferay:com.liferay.frontend.taglib.clay. It affects 1 product.

Products include Liferay Liferay Portal.

How do I fix CVE-2021-38264?

Upgrade com.liferay:com.liferay.frontend.taglib.clay to 7.1.15 or later.

Escape output for the context it lands in and set a strict Content Security Policy. Upgrading the affected component is the real fix. More about Cross-site scripting.

Is CVE-2021-38264 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-38264 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Liferay Liferay Portal

• CVE-2020-7961 Liferay Portal Deserialization of Untrusted Data Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2021-33990 File upload in n/a Critical 9.8
• CVE-2019-16891 Liferay Portal Allows RCE via Deserialization of a JSON Payload Critical 9.8
• CVE-2023-47797 Liferay Portal XSS with `p_l_back_url_title` on edit content page Critical 9.6
• CVE-2020-13445 Liferay Portal and Liferay DXP Vulnerable to Arbitrary Code Execution High 8.8

All Liferay Liferay Portal vulnerabilities

Sources

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

Also known as GHSA-9536-m86r-q297.