Cross-Site Scripting in jquery

MEDIUM 6.1CVE-2012-6708 · GHSA-2pqj-h3vj-pqgw · Published 18/01/2018 · updated 16/06/2026

Package	Affected versions	Patched versions
org.webjars.npm:jquery Maven	`< 1.9.0`	`1.9.0`
jQuery NuGet	`< 1.9.0`	`1.9.0`
jquery-rails RubyGems	`< 2.2.0`	`2.2.0`
jquery jquery	`< 1.9.0`	`1.9.0`
jquery npm	`< 1.9.0`	`1.9.0`

Description

Affected versions of jquery are vulnerable to cross-site scripting. This occurs because the main jquery function uses a regular expression to differentiate between HTML and selectors, but does not properly anchor the regular expression. The result is that jquery may interpret HTML as selectors when given certain inputs, allowing for client side code execution.

Proof of Concept

$("#log").html(
    $("element[attribute='<img src=\"x\" onerror=\"alert(1)\" />']").html()
);

Recommendation

Update to version 1.9.0 or later.

NVD description

jQuery before 1.9.0 is vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting (XSS) attacks. The jQuery(strInput) function does not differentiate selectors from HTML in a reliable fashion. In vulnerable versions, jQuery determined whether the input was HTML by looking for the '<' character anywhere in the string, giving attackers more flexibility when attempting to construct a malicious payload. In fixed versions, jQuery only deems the input to be HTML if it explicitly starts with the '<' character, limiting exploitability only to attackers who can control the beginning of a string, which is far less common.

References

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