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TI-2023-30749 Aliases GHSA-gpv5-7x3g-ghjv

fast-xml-parser regex vulnerability patch could be improved from a safety perspective

Priority LOW 38Published · Updated

Key facts

Attack vector
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Privileges required
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User interaction
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Attack complexity
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Impact type
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Confidentiality · integrity · availability
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Fix status
Fixed

No CVSS vector from any source. Fix status from GitHub.

Summary

### Summary This is a comment on https://github.com/NaturalIntelligence/fast-xml-parser/security/advisories/GHSA-6w63-h3fj-q4vw and the patches fixing it. ### Details The code which validates a name calls the validator: https://github.com/NaturalIntelligence/fast-xml-parser/blob/ecf6016f9b48aec1a921e673158be0773d07283e/src/xmlparser/DocTypeReader.js#L145-L153 This checks for the presence of an invalid character. Such an approach is always risky, as it is so easy to forget to include an invalid character in the list. A safer approach is to validate entity names against the XML specification: https://www.w3.org/TR/xml11/#sec-common-syn - an ENTITY name is a Name: ``` [4] NameStartChar ::= ":" | [A-Z] | "_" | [a-z] | [#xC0-#xD6] | [#xD8-#xF6] | [#xF8-#x2FF] | [#x370-#x37D] | [#x37F-#x1FFF] | [#x200C-#x200D] | [#x2070-#x218F] | [#x2C00-#x2FEF] | [#x3001-#xD7FF] | [#xF900-#xFDCF] | [#xFDF0-#xFFFD] | [#x10000-#xEFFFF] [4a] NameChar ::= NameStartChar | "-" | "." | [0-9] | #xB7 | [#x0300-#x036F] | [#x203F-#x2040] [5] Name ::= NameStartChar (NameChar)* ``` so the safest way to validate an entity name is to build a regex to represent this expression and check whether the name given matches the regex. (Something along the lines of `/^[name start char class][name char class]*$/`.) There's probably a nice way to simplify the explicit list rather than typing it out verbatim using Unicode character properties, but I don't know enough to do so.

Why it matters now

Fix Fixed fast-xml-parser (npm): 4.2.5

SSVC decision points

Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.

Affected products

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed inStatusSource
—fast-xml-parser (npm)4.2.4 to before 4.2.54.2.5Patch availableGHSA-gpv5-7x3g-ghjv
  • fast-xml-parser (npm) Vendor— Affected 4.2.4 to before 4.2.5 Fixed in 4.2.5 Patch available GHSA-gpv5-7x3g-ghjv

Remediation

  • Fix · GHSA-gpv5-7x3g-ghjv fast-xml-parser (npm) Fixed in 4.2.5 Advisory →

Timeline

  1. 2026-10-03 Threatist record created from GHSA-gpv5-7x3g-ghjv

References

Sources

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