Liferay PortalApplication · Liferay

CVE-2021-29039

MEDIUM · 6.1 CVSS v3.1 Published 2021-05-16
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
68/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the Asset module's categories administration page in Liferay Portal 7.3.4 allows remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via the site name.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

Stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Liferay Portal 7.3.4's Asset module categories administration page allows remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML through the site name parameter due to insufficient input sanitization and output encoding.

MitigationApply Liferay security patches for CVE-2021-29039 and implement proper input validation and output encoding on the site name field in the Asset module's categories administration functionality.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Liferay PortalApplication
Affected:= 7.3.4

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Check Lifera Portal version
    Log into the Lifera control panel and navigate to Control Panel > Configuration > Server Administration > Index, or check the version displayed in the footer of the Lifera welcome page. Alternatively, access the OSGi console and run the command to retrieve the portal version.
    Affected if The installed version is exactly 7.3.4 (Lifera Portal) as this is the only affected version for this CVE.
  2. Verify Asset module categories administration access
    Navigate to Control Panel > Content > Asset > Categories, or through the site administration panel if using Lifera DXP. Confirm you have administrative privileges to access this module.
    Affected if The Asset module categories administration functionality is present and accessible in the Lifera installation.
  3. Locate the site name parameter in Asset categories
    In the Asset categories administration interface, examine the category creation or editing form. Look for any site name field or association field that can be set when creating or managing asset categories.
    Affected if A site name or site association field exists within the Asset categories administration form where user-supplied input can be entered and stored.
  4. Inspect stored category data for XSS payloads
    Use the Lifera API or database query to retrieve stored asset category records. Examine the site name field in the stored data for any unsanitized HTML or script tags that may have been injected previously.
    Affected if The site name field in stored asset category records contains unsanitized HTML or JavaScript content that was not properly encoded upon storage or retrieval.

A user is affected if their Lifera Portal version is exactly 7.3.4 and they have used the Asset module categories administration functionality where the site name parameter accepts and stores unsanitized input that gets rendered without proper output encoding.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Apply Liferay security patches for CVE-2021-29039 and implement proper input validation and output encoding on the site name field in the Asset module's categories administration functionality.

Fix this in Liferay Portal Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation3.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
11.0 hours of engineering $1,980
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Scan for this in your stack

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-29039 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data