Reflected cross-site scripting issue in Datasette

Impact

The ?_trace=1 debugging feature in Datasette does not correctly escape generated HTML, resulting in a reflected cross-site scripting vulnerability.

This vulnerability is particularly relevant if your Datasette installation includes authenticated features using plugins such as datasette-auth-passwords as an attacker could use the vulnerability to access protected data.

Patches

Datasette 0.57 and 0.56.1 both include patches for this issue.

Workarounds

If you run Datasette behind a proxy you can workaround this issue by rejecting any incoming requests with ?_trace= or &_trace= in their query string parameters.

References

• OWASP guide to reflected cross-site scripting
• Datasette issue #1360

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

• Open a discussion in simonw/datasette
• Email us at swillison+datasette @ gmail.com