Description

HCL AION is affected by a vulnerability where the Content-Security-Policy (CSP) security response header was missing from application responses. Without this header, the browser does not restrict the sources of scripts and other content, increasing exposure to cross-site scripting and content-injection attacks, potentially resulting in unintended behavior or security impact under certain conditions.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "3.1",
  "pubDate": "2026-11-06T16:17:56.330Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-11-06T16:17:56.330Z",
  "executiveSummary": "HCL AION is affected by a security misconfiguration vulnerability concerning the absence of the Content-Security-Policy (CSP) HTTP response header.\nThis vulnerability is classified as a missing security control, which inherently increases the attack surface for client-side injection attacks, specifically Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) and unauthorized content inclusion.\nBy failing to restrict the sources from which a browser is allowed to load resources—such as scripts, stylesheets, and images—the application effectively grants malicious actors the ability to facilitate content injection if other injection vectors exist.\nThe risk implication is elevated because, without a CSP, the browser relies solely on the application's input sanitization logic. If an attacker successfully injects malicious payloads into the application, the lack of a CSP prevents the browser from blocking unauthorized script execution.\nThe threat actor capability requires the ability to identify injection points within the application to leverage this misconfiguration. Exploitation does not require authentication unless the underlying injection point is protected; however, once initiated, the impact can include session hijacking, data exfiltration, or the unauthorized modification of the user's interface, impacting the integrity and confidentiality of the user session.",
  "technicalDetails": "The root cause of this vulnerability is the failure of the HCL AION application server to inject a valid Content-Security-Policy (CSP) header into its HTTP response headers. The CSP header is a declarative security mechanism that allows web administrators to define which dynamic resources are permitted to load, thereby serving as a critical layer of defense-in-depth against various forms of content injection.\nIn the absence of this header, the browser's default policy is to permit the loading of resources from any origin, provided the page allows it. An attacker can exploit this by utilizing an existing Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability or an HTML injection flaw. When a user navigates to a compromised page, the browser will execute any script tag or load any resource linked by the attacker, as there are no restrictions enforcing the origin or integrity of the content.\nThe attack flow typically initiates when an attacker discovers an injection point, such as an unvalidated input field or a malformed URL parameter that reflects content back to the user without proper encoding. Once the attacker injects a script, the lack of a CSP policy prevents the enforcement of 'unsafe-inline' restrictions or 'script-src' whitelisting. Consequently, the browser executes the malicious script within the security context of the origin domain.\nPost-exploitation, the browser allows the injected script to access sensitive data, such as document.cookie (if not protected by HttpOnly flags), local storage, and session tokens. Furthermore, the attacker can manipulate the Document Object Model (DOM) to present phishing interfaces to the user, intercept user inputs, or perform unauthorized actions on behalf of the authenticated user. This significantly degrades the client-side security posture, as the application cannot mitigate the execution of unauthorized client-side code regardless of the complexity of the injection vector.\nThis misconfiguration is particularly dangerous in enterprise environments where applications handle sensitive session data. Because the vulnerability exists at the header configuration level, it impacts the entire application scope, potentially affecting all users irrespective of their authentication or privilege levels. The lack of a policy effectively removes a significant barrier to the successful execution of malicious payloads, making it easier for an attacker to achieve persistent or reflected XSS goals without triggering browser-native blocking mechanisms."
}