Bootstrap, one of the most popular front-end frameworks, is renowned for its responsive designs and reusable components. However, like any software, it's not immune to vulnerabilities, which can pose significant security risks.

In this article, we will look at five notable Bootstrap vulnerabilities, their implications, and the measures needed to mitigate them.

1) XSS in <3.4.1 & 4.0.0-4.3.1

This vulnerability permitted attackers to execute XSS attacks through Bootstrap’s handling of data attributes in components, potentially leading to unauthorized actions by the user. The exploit could compromise user data and application integrity.

• CVE: CVE-2019-8331

• Published: The vulnerability was published on February 20, 2019.

• How to fix it: Updating Bootstrap to version 3.4.1 or 4.3.1 is the recommended fix to mitigate this vulnerability, ensuring that the malicious scripts cannot be executed through data attributes.

2) XSS in <3.4.0

This vulnerability highlights the susceptibility of earlier Bootstrap versions to XSS attacks, allowing attackers to run malicious scripts via data attributes. It underscored the need for robust input sanitization and validation.

• CVE: CVE-2016-10735

• Published: The vulnerability was published on January 9, 2019.

• How to fix it: To rectify this issue, upgrading to Bootstrap 3.4.0 or a newer version ensures that the vulnerability is patched and data attributes are properly sanitized.

3) XSS in Tooltip data-template <3.4.1

This specific XSS vulnerability affected the tooltip’s data-template attribute in versions before 3.4.1, allowing arbitrary JavaScript code injection by attackers.

• CVE: CVE-2018-14040

• Published: The vulnerability was published on July 13, 2018.

• How to fix it: The remediation for this vulnerability involves upgrading to Bootstrap 3.4.0 or 4.1.2, which includes necessary patches to prevent arbitrary code execution within the tooltip component.

4) XSS in <3.4.0 & 4.0.0-4.1.2

Attackers could exploit this vulnerability across multiple versions of Bootstrap, executing malicious scripts through improperly sanitized data attributes.

• CVE: CVE-2018-20676

• Published: The vulnerability was published on January 9, 2019.

• How to fix it: Patching this vulnerability requires updating Bootstrap to version 3.4.0 or higher, which addresses these XSS issues by properly sanitizing data attributes.

5) XSS in 4.0.0-4.1.2

Targeting a specific range of versions, this XSS vulnerability allowed the execution of unauthorized scripts through Bootstrap’s components, leading to potential security breaches.

• CVE: CVE-2018-14041

• Published: The vulnerability was published on June 12, 2018.

• How to fix it: The fix for this vulnerability is to upgrade Bootstrap to version 4.1.2 or later, ensuring that the components are no longer susceptible to XSS attacks.