CAPEC-588

DOM-Based XSS

Very High severityHigh likelihoodDetailed pattern

This type of attack is a form of Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) where a malicious script is inserted into the client-side HTML being parsed by a web browser. Content served by a vulnerable web application includes script code used to manipulate the Document Object Model (DOM). This script code either does not properly validate input, or does not perform proper output encoding, thus creating an opportunity for an adversary to inject a malicious script launch a XSS attack. A key distinction between other XSS attacks and DOM-based attacks is that in other XSS attacks, the malicious script runs when the vulnerable web page is initially loaded, while a DOM-based attack executes sometime after the page loads. Another distinction of DOM-based attacks is that in some cases, the malicious script is never sent to the vulnerable web server at all. An attack like this is guaranteed to bypass any server-side filtering attempts to protect users.

On this page

Ask an AI about this attack pattern
How the attack unfolds
Prerequisites
Skills required
Resources required
Consequences
Mitigations
Weaknesses it exploits
Related attack patterns
Examples

Ask an AI about this attack pattern

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Explain the attack pattern CAPEC-588: DOM-Based XSS: how it unfolds, what it needs and how to prevent and detect it in my systems. Use https://capec.mitre.org/data/definitions/588.html and https://cve.bz/cve/capec/588?via=ask-ai-copy, which lists recent CVEs with the weaknesses it exploits. Cite the sources.

Opens a third-party assistant; its answer is its own, not cve.bz's. The prompt holds only this attack pattern's id and public links.

How the attack unfolds

Explore
The attacker looks for a way in.
1. [Survey the application for user-controllable inputs] Using a browser or an automated tool, an adversary follows all public links and actions on a web site. They record all the links, the forms, the resources accessed and all other potential entry-points for the web application.
  3 techniques
  - Use a spidering tool to follow and record all links and analyze the web pages to find entry points. Make special note of any links that include parameters in the URL.
  - Use a proxy tool to record all links visited during a manual traversal of the web application.
  - Use a browser to manually explore the website and analyze how it is constructed. Many browsers' plugins are available to facilitate the analysis or automate the discovery.
Experiment
They probe what they found.
1. [Probe identified potential entry points for DOM-based XSS vulnerability] The adversary uses the entry points gathered in the "Explore" phase as a target list and injects various common script payloads and special characters to determine if an entry point actually represents a vulnerability and to characterize the extent to which the vulnerability can be exploited. Specific to DOM-based XSS, the adversary is looking for areas where input is being used to directly change the DOM.
  3 techniques
  - Use a list of XSS probe strings to inject script in parameters of known URLs. If possible, the probe strings contain a unique identifier.
  - Use a proxy tool to record results of manual input of XSS probes in known URLs.
  - Use a list of HTML special characters to inject into parameters of known URLs and check if they were properly encoded, replaced, or filtered out.
2. [Craft malicious XSS URL] Once the adversary has determined which parameters are vulnerable to XSS, they will craft a malicious URL containing the XSS exploit. The adversary can have many goals, from stealing session IDs, cookies, credentials, and page content from the victim. In DOM-based XSS, the malicious script might not even be sent to the server, since the victim's browser will manipulate the DOM itself. This can help avoid serve-side detection mechanisms.
  3 techniques
  - Change a URL parameter to include a malicious script tag.
  - Add a URL fragment to alter the value of the expected Document object URL.
  - Send information gathered from the malicious script to a remote endpoint.
Exploit
They carry out the attack.
1. [Get victim to click URL] In order for the attack to be successful, the victim needs to access the malicious URL.
  2 techniques
  - Send a phishing email to the victim containing the malicious URL. This can be hidden in a hyperlink as to not show the full URL, which might draw suspicion.
  - Put the malicious URL on a public forum, where many victims might accidentally click the link.

Prerequisites

An application that leverages a client-side web browser with scripting enabled.
An application that manipulates the DOM via client-side scripting.
An application that failS to adequately sanitize or encode untrusted input.

Skills required

Medium skill
Requires the ability to write scripts of some complexity and to inject it through user controlled fields in the system.

Resources required

None: No specialized resources are required to execute this type of attack.

Consequences

What a successful attack can lead to
Impact	Affects	Note
Read Data	Confidentiality	A successful DOM-based XSS attack can enable an adversary to exfiltrate sensitive information from the application.
Gain Privileges	Confidentiality, Authorization, Access Control	A successful DOM-based XSS attack can enable an adversary to elevate their privilege level and access functionality they should not otherwise be allowed to access.
Execute Unauthorized Commands	Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability	A successful DOM-based XSS attack can enable an adversary run arbitrary code of their choosing, thus enabling a complete compromise of the application.
Modify Data	Integrity	A successful DOM-based XSS attack can allow an adversary to tamper with application data.

Mitigations

Use browser technologies that do not allow client-side scripting.
Utilize proper character encoding for all output produced within client-site scripts manipulating the DOM.
Ensure that all user-supplied input is validated before use.

Weaknesses it exploits

CWE-20 Improper Input Validation
CWE-79 Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation
CWE-83 Improper Neutralization of Script in Attributes in a Web Page

Recent CVEs with these weaknesses

9.6CVE-2026-1081862026-11-10
Improper Input Validation in Zoom Workplace for Windows may allow an unauthenticated user to conduct an escalation of privilege via network access.
4.9CVE-2026-1054272026-11-10
Improper input validation in Ivanti EPMM before version 12.10.0.1, 12.9.0.3, and 12.8.0.5 allows a remote authenticated attacker with admin privileges to permanently disable all Apache HTTPS services resulting in denial of service.
6.7CVE-2026-1054262026-11-10
Improper input validation in Ivanti EPMM before version 12.10.0.1, 12.9.0.3, and 12.8.0.5 allows a remote authenticated attacker with admin privileges to set arbitrary Linux kernel parameters as root.
4.3CVE-2026-1231782026-11-10
An insufficient input validation vulnerability in the listed NETGEAR Orbi Models router allows an authenticated administrator connected to the local network to execute unauthorized commands and modify the router’s software and functionalit…
6.3CVE-2026-1258712026-11-10
The sourcecache expansion module in MISP Modules (misp-modules) contains a Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability. When a user with permission to create or modify attributes of type 'link' or 'url' submits an attribute value, the…
8.1CVE-2026-125742026-11-10
Zoho Corporation ManageEngine DDI Central versions 6200 and below are vulnerable to Server-side HTML/JavaScript injection in analytics PDF generation leading to local file disclosure.
5.1CVE-2026-1203502026-11-10
The Vaadin Rich Text Editor exports a video embed without escaping its value, and then parses the resulting HTML into live DOM. A value crafted to break out of the href attribute therefore runs script in the viewer's browser. An attacker w…
5.5CVE-2026-1257032026-11-10
A flaw was found in the GStreamer gst-plugins-bad MXF plugin. Insufficient bounds checks when parsing crafted VANC data can cause an out-of-bounds read in the demuxer, while an incorrect buffer size calculation when muxing multiple ancilla…

The newest records naming one of them. Each weakness's page lists them all.

Part of: CAPEC-63 Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
More specific patterns: CAPEC-18 XSS Targeting Non-Script Elements
CAPEC-32 XSS Through HTTP Query Strings
CAPEC-86 XSS Through HTTP Headers
CAPEC-198 XSS Targeting Error Pages
CAPEC-199 XSS Using Alternate Syntax
CAPEC-243 XSS Targeting HTML Attributes
CAPEC-244 XSS Targeting URI Placeholders
CAPEC-245 XSS Using Doubled Characters
CAPEC-247 XSS Using Invalid Characters

Examples

Consider a web application that enables or disables some of the fields of a form on the page via the use of a…

Consider a web application that enables or disables some of the fields of a form on the page via the use of a mode parameter provided on the query string.

http://my.site.com/aform.html?mode=full

The application’s client-side code may want to print this mode value to the screen to give the users an understanding of what mode they are in. In this example, JavaScript is used to pull the value from the URL and update the HTML by dynamically manipulating the DOM via a document.write() call.

Notice how the value provided on the URL is used directly with no input validation performed and no output encoding in place. A maliciously crafted URL can thus be formed such that if a victim clicked on the URL, a malicious script would then be executed by the victim’s browser:

http://my.site.com/aform.html?mode=<script>alert('hi');</script>

In some DOM-based attacks, the malicious script never gets sent to the web server at all, thus bypassing any …

In some DOM-based attacks, the malicious script never gets sent to the web server at all, thus bypassing any server-side protections that might be in place. Consider the previously used web application that displays the mode value. Since the HTML is being generated dynamically through DOM manipulations, a URL fragment (i.e., the part of a URL after the '#' character) can be used.

http://my.site.com/aform.html#mode=<script>alert('hi')</script>

In this variation of a DOM-based XSS attack, the malicious script will not be sent to the web server, but will instead be managed by the victim's browser and is still available to the client-side script code.

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