Stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) via Unsanitized Topology Metadata in Apache Storm UI


Versions Affected: before 2.8.6


Description: The Storm UI visualization component interpolates topology metadata including component IDs, stream names, and grouping values directly into HTML via innerHTML in parseNode() and parseEdge() without sanitization at any layer. An authenticated user with topology submission rights could craft a topology containing malicious HTML/JavaScript in component identifiers (e.g., a bolt ID containing an onerror event handler). This payload flows through Nimbus → Thrift → the Visualization API → vis.js tooltip rendering, resulting in stored cross-site scripting. 

In multi-tenant deployments where topology submission is available to less-trusted users but the UI is accessed by operators or administrators, this enables privilege escalation through script execution in an admin's browser session.


Mitigation: 2.x users should upgrade to 2.8.6. Users who cannot upgrade immediately should monkey-patch the parseNode() and parseEdge() functions in the visualization JavaScript file to HTML-escape all API-supplied values including nodeId, :capacity, :latency, :component, :stream, and :grouping before interpolation into tooltip HTML strings, and should additionally restrict topology submission to trusted users via Nimbus ACLs as a defense-in-depth measure. A guide on how to do this is available in the release notes of 2.8.6.

Credit: This issue was discovered while investigating another report by K.
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History

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
References

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) via Unsanitized Topology Metadata in Apache Storm UI Versions Affected: before 2.8.6 Description: The Storm UI visualization component interpolates topology metadata including component IDs, stream names, and grouping values directly into HTML via innerHTML in parseNode() and parseEdge() without sanitization at any layer. An authenticated user with topology submission rights could craft a topology containing malicious HTML/JavaScript in component identifiers (e.g., a bolt ID containing an onerror event handler). This payload flows through Nimbus → Thrift → the Visualization API → vis.js tooltip rendering, resulting in stored cross-site scripting.  In multi-tenant deployments where topology submission is available to less-trusted users but the UI is accessed by operators or administrators, this enables privilege escalation through script execution in an admin's browser session. Mitigation: 2.x users should upgrade to 2.8.6. Users who cannot upgrade immediately should monkey-patch the parseNode() and parseEdge() functions in the visualization JavaScript file to HTML-escape all API-supplied values including nodeId, :capacity, :latency, :component, :stream, and :grouping before interpolation into tooltip HTML strings, and should additionally restrict topology submission to trusted users via Nimbus ACLs as a defense-in-depth measure. A guide on how to do this is available in the release notes of 2.8.6. Credit: This issue was discovered while investigating another report by K.
Title Apache Storm UI: Stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) via Unsanitized Topology Metadata in Storm UI
Weaknesses CWE-79
References

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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: apache

Published:

Updated: 2026-04-13T09:40:05.298Z

Reserved: 2026-04-03T15:14:12.281Z

Link: CVE-2026-35565

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-04-13T10:16:11.770

Modified: 2026-04-13T10:16:11.770

Link: CVE-2026-35565

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.

Weaknesses