1. Overview
Craft CMS is vulnerable to Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) and Arbitrary JavaScript Injection through the /actions/app/resource-js endpoint. By exploiting the default permissive trustedHosts configuration, an attacker can poison the Host or X-Forwarded-Host header to manipulate the application’s $baseUrl. This bypasses the endpoint’s internal URL validation, forcing the backend Guzzle client to fetch a malicious payload from an attacker-controlled server and reflect it to the client with a Content-Type: application/javascript header.
2. Vulnerability Mechanism (Root Cause)
The vulnerability manifests when assetManager.cacheSourcePaths is set to false. The attack chain relies on three structural flaws and insecure defaults:
trustedHosts): Craft’s default GeneralConfig::$trustedHosts is set to ['any']. This allows an attacker to bypass front-end web server (Nginx/Apache) strict Host header validations by simply injecting an X-Forwarded-Host header. Yii2 will parse this and globally set $baseUrl to the attacker's domain.actionResourceJs): In AppController::actionResourceJs(), the str_starts_with($url, $baseUrl) validation is bypassed because $baseUrl is already poisoned by the attacker. The core then uses Craft::createGuzzleClient()->get($url). Unlike the GraphQL Asset fetcher, this Guzzle instance defaults to ALLOW_REDIRECTS => true.$this->asRaw() with the header Content-Type: application/javascript.3. Attack Scenario & Impact (Proof of Exploitability) This endpoint acts as a proxy, taking remote, unverified content and serving it as valid JavaScript. While the direct SSRF allows for internal network probing, the most devastating impact occurs when caching layers are involved.
If the Craft CMS instance is behind a caching layer, this vulnerability leads directly to Web Cache Poisoning:
/actions/app/resource-js URI.window.Craft.csrfTokenValue and silently sends a POST request to /admin/actions/plugins/install-plugin, achieving 1-Click Remote Code Execution (RCE) via Session Riding.| Software | From | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
craftcms / cms
|
5.0.0-RC1 | 5.10 |
craftcms / cms
|
4.0.0-RC1 | 4.18 |
A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.
CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.
A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.
Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.
Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.
SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.