CVE-2024-30114 is a medium-severity cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability identified in HCL Software's product HCL Leap, specifically affecting versions prior to 9.3.6. The vulnerability arises due to improper neutralization of input during web page generation within the authoring environment of HCL Leap. This insufficient sanitization allows an attacker to inject malicious client-side scripts into the application. When a user accesses the compromised content, the injected scripts execute in the context of the victim's browser, potentially leading to unauthorized actions such as session hijacking, credential theft, or manipulation of the user interface. The vulnerability is classified under CWE-79, which pertains to improper input validation that fails to neutralize or encode input correctly before rendering it in a web page. Notably, this vulnerability exists in the authoring environment, which is typically used by content creators or administrators to build or manage content, implying that exploitation may require some level of access to this environment or user interaction with crafted content. There are no known exploits in the wild at the time of publication, and no official patches have been released yet. The vulnerability was reserved on March 22, 2024, and publicly disclosed on April 24, 2025. The lack of a CVSS score necessitates an independent severity assessment based on the potential impact and exploitability factors.

For European organizations using HCL Leap, this vulnerability could lead to significant risks, especially in sectors relying heavily on web-based content management and digital collaboration platforms, such as government agencies, financial institutions, and large enterprises. Exploitation could compromise the confidentiality of sensitive information by enabling attackers to steal session cookies or credentials, leading to unauthorized access. Integrity could be affected if attackers manipulate content or inject misleading information, potentially damaging organizational reputation or causing operational disruptions. Availability impact is generally limited in XSS vulnerabilities but could be indirect if attackers use the vulnerability to deploy further attacks like phishing or malware distribution. Since the vulnerability exists in the authoring environment, attackers might need some level of access or social engineering to lure users into interacting with malicious content. However, once exploited, the scope could extend to all users who access the compromised content, amplifying the risk. The absence of known exploits suggests a window for proactive mitigation, but organizations should act promptly to prevent potential exploitation.

1. Immediate mitigation should focus on restricting access to the authoring environment to trusted personnel only, enforcing strict authentication and authorization controls. 2. Implement Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to reduce the impact of potential XSS by restricting the sources from which scripts can be loaded and executed. 3. Employ web application firewalls (WAFs) with custom rules to detect and block suspicious input patterns targeting the authoring environment. 4. Conduct thorough input validation and output encoding on all user-supplied data within the authoring environment, even if patches are not yet available. 5. Monitor logs and user activity for unusual behavior indicative of attempted exploitation. 6. Prepare for rapid deployment of official patches once released by HCL Software. 7. Educate users with access to the authoring environment about phishing and social engineering risks that could facilitate exploitation. 8. Consider isolating the authoring environment from the public-facing production environment to limit the blast radius of any successful attack.