Severity
Details
- CVSS score
- 6.0
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
- CWE ID
Overview
About vulnerability
There is an inconsistency between FORBID_TAGS and FORBID_ATTR handling when function-based ADD_TAGS is used.
Commit c361baa added an early exit for FORBID_ATTR at line 1214:
/* FORBID_ATTR must always win, even if ADD_ATTR predicate would allow it */ if (FORBID_ATTR[lcName]) { return false; }
The same fix was not applied to FORBID_TAGS. At line 1118-1123, when EXTRA_ELEMENT_HANDLING.tagCheck returns true, the short-circuit evaluation skips the FORBID_TAGS check entirely:
if ( !( EXTRA_ELEMENT_HANDLING.tagCheck instanceof Function && EXTRA_ELEMENT_HANDLING.tagCheck(tagName) // true -> short-circuits ) && (!ALLOWED_TAGS[tagName] || FORBID_TAGS[tagName]) // never evaluated ) {
This allows forbidden elements to survive sanitization with their attributes intact.
PoC (tested against current HEAD in Node.js + jsdom):
const DOMPurify = createDOMPurify(window);
DOMPurify.sanitize( ‘’, { ADD_TAGS: function(tag) { return true; }, FORBID_TAGS: [‘iframe’] } ); // Returns: ‘’ // Expected: ’’ (iframe forbidden)
DOMPurify.sanitize( ‘
’, { ADD_TAGS: function(tag) { return true; }, FORBID_TAGS: [‘form’] } ); // Returns: ‘’ // Expected: ‘’ (form forbidden)Confirmed affected: iframe, object, embed, form. The src/action/data attributes survive because attribute sanitization runs separately and allows these URLs.
Compare with FORBID_ATTR which correctly wins:
DOMPurify.sanitize( ‘
hello
’, { ADD_ATTR: function(attr) { return true; }, FORBID_ATTR: [‘onclick’] } ); // Returns: ‘hello
’ (onclick correctly removed)Suggested fix: add FORBID_TAGS early exit before the tagCheck evaluation, mirroring line 1214:
/* FORBID_TAGS must always win, even if ADD_TAGS predicate would allow it */ if (FORBID_TAGS[tagName]) { // proceed to removal logic }
This requires function-based ADD_TAGS in the config, which is uncommon. But the asymmetry with the FORBID_ATTR fix is clear, and the impact includes iframe and form injection with external URLs.
Reporter: Koda Reef