CVE intelligence and bounded remediation
CVE-2021-41372 — Microsoft Power Bi Report Server security vulnerability
A Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) and Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability exists when Power BI Report Server Template file (pbix) containing HTML files is uploaded to the server and HTML files are accessed directly by the victim. Combining these 2 vulnerabilities together, an attacker is able to upload malicious Power BI templates files to the server using the victim's session and run scripts in the security context of the user and perform privilege escalation in case the victim has admin privileges when the victim access one of the HTML files present in the malicious Power BI template uploaded. The security update addresses the vulnerability by helping to ensure that Power BI Report Server properly sanitize file uploads.
- Severity
- Critical
- CVSS
- 9.6 (3.1)
- Published
- 2021-11-10
- CISA KEV
- Not currently listed
- Ecosystem
- windows/system
- Weaknesses
- CWE-79, CWE-352
Affected products
- microsoft / power_bi_report_server / 15.0.1107.165
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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