CVE intelligence and bounded remediation
CVE-2021-29434 — Wagtail is a Django content management system
Wagtail is a Django content management system. In affected versions of Wagtail, when saving the contents of a rich text field in the admin interface, Wagtail does not apply server-side checks to ensure that link URLs use a valid protocol. A malicious user with access to the admin interface could thus craft a POST request to publish content with `javascript:` URLs containing arbitrary code. The vulnerability is not exploitable by an ordinary site visitor without access to the Wagtail admin. See referenced GitHub advisory for additional details, including a workaround. Patched versions have been released as Wagtail 2.11.7 (for the LTS 2.11 branch) and Wagtail 2.12.4 (for the current 2.12 branch).
- Severity
- Medium
- CVSS
- 6.1 (3.1)
- Published
- 2021-04-19
- CISA KEV
- Not currently listed
- Ecosystem
- javascript/npm
- Weaknesses
- CWE-79
Affected products
- torchbox / wagtail
Matched remediation archetype
Cross-site scripting and unsafe browser output
This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.
Check exposure
- Trace reflected, stored, and DOM-derived untrusted values into HTML, attributes, URLs, styles, scripts, and client-side template sinks.
- Identify affected origins, authenticated user roles, sensitive browser capabilities, and where content is shared across tenants.
- Review framework escaping, rich-text sanitization, legacy templates, and client-side rendering paths.
Remediate safely
- Use context-aware framework output encoding and safe DOM APIs; keep untrusted data out of executable contexts.
- Sanitize intentionally supported markup with a maintained allowlist policy and validate URLs and attributes separately.
- Update affected rendering components and add tests for every output context using inert sentinel markup.
Authoritative sources
Complete CVE record and remediation plan
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