Description

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') in Apache Roller 6.1.5 allows a remote attacker to perform reflected cross-site scripting through the optional LDAP comment authenticator, which writes request parameter values into its HTML form without escaping. This affects only sites configured to use LdapCommentAuthenticator, and a victim whose session has already loaded the authenticator form must follow a crafted link. Users are recommended to upgrade to Apache Roller 6.1.6 or later, which escapes the reflected values.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "6.1",
  "pubDate": "2026-09-28T08:16:43.013Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-09-28T08:16:43.013Z",
  "executiveSummary": "This vulnerability is categorized as Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation, commonly known as Cross-Site Scripting (XSS).\nIt affects Apache Roller version 6.1.5 specifically when the optional LdapCommentAuthenticator is enabled.\nThe vulnerability allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary client-side scripts in the context of a victim's session.\nSuccessful exploitation requires the victim to click a specially crafted malicious link while their session is currently interacting with the vulnerable LDAP comment authenticator form.\nThe primary risk involves unauthorized data access, session hijacking, or the execution of malicious actions on behalf of the authenticated user within the target web application.\nBecause the payload is reflected, the attacker must entice a victim into clicking a link, making this a classic reflected XSS vector facilitated by poor input sanitization in the authenticator component.\nThe vulnerability is resolved by upgrading to Apache Roller 6.1.6 or later, which implements necessary input escaping.",
  "technicalDetails": "The root cause of this vulnerability lies in the improper handling of request parameters within the LdapCommentAuthenticator component of Apache Roller 6.1.5.\nWhen a user interacts with the LDAP comment authenticator, the application reflects specific request parameters directly into the HTML response stream without performing adequate output encoding or sanitization.\nThis behavior violates secure coding practices, specifically regarding the handling of untrusted input in web page generation, as described by CWE-79.\nThe attack flow proceeds as follows: An attacker identifies a request parameter that is reflected by the LdapCommentAuthenticator. The attacker then constructs a malicious URL containing a JavaScript payload within that specific parameter.\nThe attacker disseminates this link to a target victim who is known to be or likely to be interacting with the Apache Roller instance.\nFor the attack to succeed, the victim's session must have already loaded the authenticator form, ensuring the application is in a state where the vulnerable reflected parameters are processed.\nWhen the victim executes the crafted link, the server receives the malicious request and reflects the unsanitized script directly back to the victim's browser within the HTML form.\nThe victim's browser, interpreting the reflected input as legitimate HTML/JavaScript, executes the malicious payload within the security context of the victim's session.\nThis enables the attacker to bypass browser-based security boundaries (such as Same-Origin Policy) to read sensitive session data, steal cookies, or perform unauthorized administrative actions.\nThe vulnerability is isolated to deployments explicitly configured to utilize the LdapCommentAuthenticator, meaning standard installations not using this specific authentication method remain unaffected.\nPost-exploitation, the attacker gains the ability to manipulate the victim's session state, potentially escalating privileges if the victim holds administrative rights, or harvesting sensitive user information transmitted during the session.\nThe technical flaw is remediated in version 6.1.6 by applying rigorous output escaping to all reflected parameters, ensuring that any input processed by the authenticator is treated as inert text rather than executable markup."
}