Compliance Impact

The vulnerability allows an unauthenticated attacker to inject arbitrary HTML or JavaScript into the browser of users who open a crafted WMS URL, potentially leading to reflected Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks.

Such XSS vulnerabilities can lead to unauthorized script execution in users' browsers, which may result in exposure or compromise of sensitive information.

This kind of security flaw could impact compliance with standards like GDPR and HIPAA, which require protection of personal and sensitive data against unauthorized access or disclosure.

However, the CVE description and resources do not explicitly mention compliance implications or specific regulatory impacts.

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Executive Summary

This vulnerability is a reflected Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) issue in MapServer's WMS server versions from 6.0 up to before 8.6.2. It allows an unauthenticated attacker to inject arbitrary HTML or JavaScript code into the browser of any user who opens a specially crafted WMS URL. The attack exploits the FORMAT=application/openlayers parameter combined with an unsanitized SRS parameter in WMS 1.3.0 requests.

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Impact Analysis

This vulnerability can impact users by allowing attackers to execute malicious scripts in their browsers when they access a crafted WMS URL. This can lead to theft of sensitive information, session hijacking, or other malicious actions performed in the context of the affected web application.

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Mitigation Strategies

The vulnerability has been patched in MapServer version 8.6.2. The immediate step to mitigate this vulnerability is to upgrade your MapServer installation to version 8.6.2 or later.

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Detection Guidance

This vulnerability can be detected by monitoring or testing for WMS 1.3.0 requests that include the parameter FORMAT=application/openlayers combined with an unsanitized SRS parameter. Specifically, you can look for HTTP requests to the MapServer WMS endpoint that contain these parameters and check if the SRS parameter is reflected unsanitized in the response.

A practical approach is to capture network traffic or use tools like curl or wget to send crafted WMS requests and observe the responses for reflected script or HTML content.

• Use curl to send a test request: curl -v "http://<mapserver-host>/wms?SERVICE=WMS&VERSION=1.3.0&REQUEST=GetMap&FORMAT=application/openlayers&SRS=<test_payload>"
• Replace <test_payload> with a string containing HTML or JavaScript code (e.g., <script>alert(1)</script>) to check if it is reflected unsanitized in the response.
• Analyze the HTTP response body for the presence of the injected script or HTML tags.

If the injected code appears in the response without proper escaping, the system is vulnerable.

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