UnicaApplication · Hcltech

CVE-2024-42210

MEDIUM · 5.4 CVSS v3.1 Published 2026-03-19
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 12.1.9 or later.
See remediation →
58/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable

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
A Stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability affects HCL Unica Marketing Operations v12.1.8 and lower.  Stored cross-site scripting (also known as second-order or persistent XSS) arises when an application receives data from an untrusted source and includes that data within its later HTTP responses in an unsafe way.

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 · moderate confidence

Stored XSS vulnerability in HCL Unica Marketing Operations v12.1.8 and lower allows malicious scripts to be persisted in the application and executed when other users view affected content, as the application fails to properly sanitize untrusted data before storing and later rendering it in HTTP responses.

MitigationApply vendor patches from HCL for Unica Marketing Operations and implement proper input validation with context-aware output encoding to neutralize malicious script payloads before storage and display.

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
UnicaApplication
Affected:< 12.1.9

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
Low
User interaction
Required
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/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 the installed version of HCL Unica Marketing Operations
    Access the application admin panel or check the product documentation for the version information. Typically found in Help > About or through the system administration console.
    Affected if The installed version is 12.1.8 or lower (anything below 12.1.9)
  2. Identify user input fields in the application
    Navigate through Unica Marketing Operations and locate forms, text inputs, and data entry fields where users can submit content that gets stored and displayed to other users.
    Affected if The application stores and displays user-submitted content without visible sanitization controls
  3. Test for input validation on stored data fields
    Submit a benign test script (such as <script>alert('test')</script>) in a user input field and have another user session view the stored content to observe if the script executes.
    Affected if The submitted script tags are rendered as-is without encoding or sanitization when viewed by other users
  4. Review application logs for XSS-related security events
    Check the Unica Marketing Operations server logs and application audit logs for any XSS detection warnings or blocked payloads related to user input fields.
    Affected if No XSS sanitization is being applied and the application accepts potentially malicious input without rejection
  5. Confirm the application lacks web application firewall or input validation
    Review the application configuration settings or security settings in the Unica administration console to verify if input validation, output encoding, or content security policies are enabled.
    Affected if No input validation, output encoding, or Content Security Policy headers are configured for user input fields

You are affected if HCL Unica Marketing Operations is installed at version 12.1.8 or lower and the application accepts and displays user-submitted content without proper sanitization.

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.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 12.1.9 or later
Fixed in 12.1.9
Interim mitigation

Apply vendor patches from HCL for Unica Marketing Operations and implement proper input validation with context-aware output encoding to neutralize malicious script payloads before storage and display.

Recommended fix High confidence

12.1.9

  1. 1. Download HCL Unica Marketing Operations version 12.1.9 from the official HCL support portal (support.hcl-software.com)
  2. 2. Create a complete backup of your current HCL Unica installation including the database
  3. 3. Stop all HCL Unica services before proceeding with the upgrade
  4. 4. Install or upgrade to version 12.1.9 following the official HCL Unica upgrade documentation
  5. 5. Restart all HCL Unica services after the upgrade completes
  6. 6. Verify the version installed is 12.1.9 and test that the stored XSS vulnerability is no longer present

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Unica Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation16.0 h
  • Testing8.0 h
  • Review / QA4.0 h
32.0 hours of engineering $5,600
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2024-42210 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

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-2024-42210 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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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