github
General issue: XSS vulnerabilities (CWE-79/CWE-116) not detected in React/Next.js .tsx components
Description I am testing the CodeQL accuracy by seeding different types of XSS vulnerabilities and running the advanced workflow with security-extended and security-and-quality queries. I noticed an issue with CodeQL flagging vulnerabilities in .tsx files. While the seeded code is detected as expected in route.ts, it is not in the component files. In both cases, at least CWE-79 should be noted.
Setup
- GitHub Advanced Security enabled on a public test repo
- Language: typescript
- Framework: Next.js
- CodeQL initialized with codeql/javascript-queries and security-extended,security-and-quality
Workflow file
name: "CodeQL Advanced"
on:
push:
branches: ["main", "security/*"]
pull_request:
branches: ["main", "dev"]
jobs:
analyze:
name: Analyze (${{ matrix.language }})
runs-on: ${{ (matrix.language == 'swift' && 'macos-latest') || 'ubuntu-latest' }}
permissions:
security-events: write
packages: read
actions: read
contents: read
strategy:
fail-fast: false
matrix:
include:
- language: actions
- language: javascript-typescript
steps:
- name: Checkout repository
uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Initialize CodeQL
uses: github/codeql-action/init@v4
with:
languages: ${{ matrix.language }}
queries: security-extended,security-and-quality
packs: codeql/javascript-queries
- name: Perform CodeQL Analysis
uses: github/codeql-action/analyze@v4
with:
category: "/language:${{matrix.language}}"
Reference https://github.com/aniakowalewska1/migration-playground/pull/39
Expected CWEs that are not detected, but are present in documentation (https://codeql.github.com/codeql-query-help/javascript-cwe/) CWE-79
export default function Seed({ msg }: { msg: string }) {
return (
<div>
<h3>Seed XSS page</h3>
<div dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: msg }} />
</div>
);
}
CWE-20/CWE-116
export async function getServerSideProps(context: GetServerSidePropsContext) {
const { query } = context;
const msg = query?.msg ?? "";
return { props: { msg } };
}
CWE-79
export default function TestPage({ userInput }: TestPageProps) {
return <XssSeed userContent={userInput} />;
}
CWE-20/CWE-601
export async function getServerSideProps(context: GetServerSidePropsContext) {
return { props: { userInput: context.query.content || "" } };
}
CWE-79
<div
dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: userInput }}
data-testid="seed-xss-sink"
/>
CWE-116
const userInput =
userContent || "<img src=x onerror=\"console.error('xss')\">Hello</img>";
Questions
- Is there additional setup needed for scanning React?
- Why is CWE-79 and CWE-116 flagged is a .ts file and ignored in .tsx?
Thanks for the report. I was able to locally reproduce the CWE-079/ReflectedXss alert on your PR. It's not immediately clear to me why the XSS in that file is getting picked up by the query but not the ones in .tsx files. They do follow different patterns (GET/NextResponse vs React component-based page), but I don't think that should matter. I'll bring in another team that can help.
