CVE-2025-30161
Vulnerability: Stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) in OpenEMR Bronchitis Form
Description: A stored XSS vulnerability exists within the Bronchitis form component of OpenEMR. An attacker with edit access to the Bronchitis form can inject malicious JavaScript code that will be stored within the database. When an administrator or other user accesses the form, the malicious script will execute in their browser.
Severity: High (CVSS Score: 8.4)
Known Exploit: Attackers can inject malicious JavaScript code via the Bronchitis form fields. When a user, particularly an administrator, views the compromised form, the injected script executes within their browser session. This could lead to:
- Credential theft: Stealing the administrator’s session cookie, allowing the attacker to impersonate them.
- Data exfiltration: Stealing sensitive patient data or other information from the OpenEMR system.
- System compromise: If the administrator has elevated privileges, the attacker could potentially gain control of the OpenEMR server.
- Malware distribution: Redirecting users to malicious websites or initiating the download of malware.
Remediation / Mitigation Strategy:
Immediate Upgrade: Upgrade to OpenEMR version 7.0.3 or later immediately. This version contains the fix for the XSS vulnerability.
Input Validation and Sanitization: Implement robust input validation and sanitization on all form fields, particularly within the Bronchitis form (and all other forms within OpenEMR). Specifically:
- Whitelist allowed characters: Define a whitelist of acceptable characters for each field and reject any input containing characters outside the whitelist.
- HTML Encoding: Encode all user-supplied input before displaying it in the browser. This will prevent the browser from interpreting the input as HTML code. Use appropriate encoding functions provided by the programming language and framework used by OpenEMR.
Content Security Policy (CSP): Implement a strict Content Security Policy (CSP) to control the resources that the browser is allowed to load. This can help prevent the execution of malicious scripts, even if an XSS vulnerability exists.
- Specifically, restrict the sources from which scripts can be loaded to only trusted domains.
- Use
'nonce'or'hash'based CSP to allow inline scripts from trusted sources.
Principle of Least Privilege: Ensure that users are only granted the minimum necessary permissions to access and modify data. This will limit the potential impact of an XSS attack. Review user roles and permissions within OpenEMR.
Regular Security Audits and Penetration Testing: Conduct regular security audits and penetration testing of the OpenEMR system to identify and remediate vulnerabilities.
User Education and Awareness: Educate users about the risks of XSS attacks and how to identify suspicious links or forms. Promote awareness of phishing attacks that might attempt to steal user credentials.
Web Application Firewall (WAF): Consider deploying a Web Application Firewall (WAF) to filter out malicious requests and protect against XSS attacks.
Data Review and Sanitization: If feasible, and after upgrading, review existing data within the Bronchitis forms for potentially injected scripts. Manually sanitize any found malicious code. Be very careful when doing this to avoid accidentally deleting valid data. Create a backup of the database before attempting any manual data modifications.
These steps will significantly reduce the risk of exploitation and protect the OpenEMR system from XSS attacks.
Assigner
- GitHub, Inc. [email protected]
Date
- Published Date: 2025-03-31 16:15:25
- Updated Date: 2025-03-31 16:15:25